KI.XG GEORGE'S SOUND. 449 





attempt, from the thickness of the wood. Our guide, however, 

 was a stupid fellow, and conducted us to the southern and damp 

 side of the mountain, where the vegetation was very luxuriant ; 

 and where the labour of the asceat, from the number of rotten 

 trunks, w r as almost as great as on a mountain in Tierra del Fuego 

 or in Chiloe. It cost us five and a half hours of hard climbing 

 before we reached the summit. In many parts the Eucalypti 

 grew to a great size, and composed a noble forest. In some 

 of the dampest ravines, tree-ferns flourished in an extraordinary 

 manner ; I saw one which must have been at least twenty feet 

 high to the base of the fronds, and was in girth exactly six feet. 

 The fronds forming the most elegant parasols, produced a gloomy 

 shade, like that of the first hour of night. The summit of the 

 mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular 

 masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3100 feet above 

 the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we en- 

 joyed a most extensive view ; to the north, the country appeared 

 a mass of wooded mountains, of about the same height with that 

 on which we were standing, and with an equally tame outline : 

 to the south the broken land and water, forming many intricate 

 bays, was mapped with clearness before us. After staying some 

 hours on the summit, we found a better way to descend, but did 

 not reach the Beagle till eight o'clock, after a severe day's 

 work. 



February 7th. — The Beagle sailed from Tasmania, and, on 

 the 6th of the ensuing month, reached King George's Sound, 

 situated close to the S.W. corner of Australia. We staid there 

 eight days ; and we did not during our voyage pass a more dull 

 and uninteresting time. The country, viewed from an eminence, 

 appears a woody plain, with here and there rounded and partly 

 bare hills of granite protruding. One day I went out with a 

 party, in hopes of seeing a kangaroo hunt, and walked over a good 

 many miles of country. Everywhere we found the soil sandy, 

 and very poor ; it supported either a coarse vegetation of thin, 

 low brushwood and wiry grass, or a forest of stunted trees. Th^ 

 scenery resembled that of the high sandstone platform of the Blue 

 Mountains ; the Casuarina (a tree somewhat resembling a Scotch 

 fir) is, however, here in greater number, and the Eucalyptus in 

 rather less. In the open parts there were many grass-trees, — 



