270 AUSTRALIA CHAP, xi 



and his tripe. The fish itself was not quite so good as a 

 skate, nor was it much inferior. The tripe everybody 

 thought excellent. We had it with a dish of the boiled 

 leaves of Tetragonia cornuta, which eat as well, or very nearly 

 as well, as spinach. 



1*7^. About ten we were abreast of a large bay, 1 

 the bottom of which was out of sight. The sea here 

 suddenly changed from its usual transparency to a dirty 

 clay colour, appearing much as if charged with freshes, from 

 whence I was led to conclude that the bottom of the bay 

 might open into a large river. About it were many smokes, 

 especially on the northern side near some remarkable conical 

 hills. 2 At sunset the land made in one bank, over which 

 nothing could be seen. It was very sandy, and carried with 

 it no signs of fertility. 



~L8th. Land this morning very sandy. We could see 

 through our glasses that the sands, which lay in great patches 

 of many acres each, were movable. Some of them had been 

 lately moved, for trees which stood up in the middle of them 

 were quite green. Others of a longer standing had many 

 stumps sticking out of them, which had been trees killed 

 by the sand heaping about their roots. Few fires were seen. 

 Two water snakes swam by the ship. They were beauti- 

 fully spotted, and in all respects like land snakes, except 

 that they had broad flat tails, which probably serve them 

 instead of fins in swimming. 



22nd. In the course of the night the tide rose very con- 

 siderably. We plainly saw with our glasses that the land 

 was covered with palm-nut trees, Pandanus tectorius, which 

 we had not seen since we left the islands within the tropics. 

 Along shore we saw two men walking, who took no kind 

 of notice of us. 



23rd. Wind blew fresh off the land, so cold that our 

 cloaks were very necessary in going ashore. When we landed, 

 however, the sun soon recovered its influence, and made it 

 sufficiently hot ; in the afternoon intolerably so. We landed 

 near the mouth of a large lagoon, 3 which ran a good way 



1 Moreton Bay. 2 The Glass Houses. 3 Bustard Bay. 



