37 



bition with vegetables of a si/e and flavour that would win the 

 approval of the most impartial judges. Up till now, vegetables, 

 \vhieh are luxuries in many parts of the colony, arc always plentiful 

 at the Yasse ; but if a preserving factory were started, there would 

 be a demand for tenfold the output that is raised to-day. The 

 chief crop now grown there is rye, which, both in straw and strain, 

 finds a ready market. Some impetus has been given to the cultiva- 

 tion of garden blocks at the Vasse, owing to the establishment of 

 timber stations cutting the superior jarrah and karri forests which 

 form the subject of some striking photographs which appear in 

 this volume, but what has been done is only a small beginning of 

 what remains to be accomplished, particularly if artesian water is 

 struck, as it has been at Perth and Guildford, within a depth of 200 

 feet. A SETTLER'S GUIDE is not the place in which to indite com- 

 pliments to the beauty of the fair sex, but it may be set down in 

 the practical spirit of a deponent who is desirous only of adducing 

 a utilitarian fact, that the wonderful health-giving properties of the 

 Vasse district is eloquently attested by the radiant clearness of the 

 complexions of the ladies of the place, the lily and the rose striv- 

 ing with each other in their countenances. 



Proceeding southward from Busselton, within a few miles of 

 the coast line, we get into the Blackwood country, so called from the 

 course of the Blackwood river, which empties itself into the Hardy 

 inlet near Cape Leeuwin. The river has come down in a south- 

 westerly course from the Darling range, passing through Bridge- 

 town, which we shall visit by and by, when we have had a look at 

 the land along the shores of the Southern ocean. This large and 

 fertile tract is thickly timbered, notably with the giant karri and 

 the umbrageous, handsome, evergreen and monopolising pepper- 

 mint, which it is very difficult to destroy by ringbarking, owing 

 to the gnarled and deeply indented surface of the trunks. 

 In this territory, 50 miles south by west of the Vasse, 

 is the large timber station known as Karridale. A tramway 

 connects Karridale with Port Hamelin, from which the timber 

 cargoes are shipped to many parts of the world. In the neighbor- 

 hood of the sawmills are extensive swamps which, if drained, would 

 make the best of garden ground. Now they are the resort of water- 

 fowl. " A most interesting and peculiar natural phenomenon (says 

 the Western Aitstialian Year Book) is to be seen in the neighbor- 

 hood. The walls, or banks of sand, from two to three miles long, 

 and from 70 feet to 90 feet high, are gradually advancing from the 

 seaboard over the land, at the rate of from one to three inches a year. 

 Between this place and the Vasse signs of coal have been found in 

 various spots, and from the rough work done by a tiffin bore excellent 

 specimens have been brought to the surface ; but owing to the 

 "want of funds prospecting has ceased." Upon Cape Leeuwin, the 

 most south-westerly point in the colony, 23 miles from Karridale, 

 a lighthouse of the first class has been erected. The level coast 



