PORT ESSINGTON. 



385 



occur in the brief space of a few months, that a seal 

 must ever be broken with feelings of great anxiety. 



We too had our share of news to be made ac- 

 quainted with. Captain Stanley had been on a most 

 interesting cruize to the Arru Islands, the deeply 

 interesting narrative of which expedition the reader 

 will peruse, we are sure, with unqualified satisfac- 

 tion, in a later section of the present work. This 

 meeting gave me real pleasure, though with regret 

 I saw that he had been much harassed. Lieut. 

 P. B. Stewart,* of the Alligator, had also made a 

 journey over the Peninsula, to which I shall pre- 

 sently further allude. 



We were of course extremely anxious to visit the 

 settlement. Landing at the jetty, which we found a 

 very creditable piece of workmanship erected under 

 the direction of Lieut. P. B. Stewart, we ascended 

 the cliff, and on gaining the summit, found ourselves 

 on a small piece of table land partially cleared. Seen 

 through the trees, the dwellings of the settlers had an 

 air of neatness, pleasing to the eye. Among the other 

 buildings in progress was the church, which, planted 

 as it was on the northern shores of the Australian 

 continent, was expected to form a nucleus fi*om which 

 off-shoots might by degrees draw within its influence 

 the islands in the Arafura Sea, and thus widely 

 spread the pure blessings of Christianity. It is 



* Since promoted for services in China ; he also served in the 

 Beagle during her last expedition. 



VOL. I. 2 C 



