72 Cruise of the ''Alert." 



stream at high tide, and on the tide falling had been examined 

 and found to contain a fair number of fish (mackerel). Some 

 hours later two of our people were wading up the river, and on 

 coming to a depression in its bed, which was at about the limit 

 to which the tidal salt-water reached, they found an immense 

 collection of half-dead and living mackerel in a pool, in which — 

 the tide being then rather low — the water was almost entirely 

 fresh. Here they caught, with their hands, fish enough to fill a 

 boat, amounting to a gross weight of 4 cwt. The probable 

 explanation of this lucky "take" seems to be that the fish entered 

 the mouth of the river with the flood tide — as is their wont — and 

 on attempting to retreat with the ebb found their return to the 

 sea barred by our net, and instead of endeavouring to pass 

 through the meshes preferred to move back into the brackish water 

 of the river. Here, as the tide fell still further and laid bare 

 banks of sand stretching across the stream, they became shut off" 

 altogether from the sea, and at dead low tide the flow of fresh 

 water so predominated over the salt as to render them helplessly 

 stupid, so that they fell an eas)- prey to our sailors. 



On the shores of this bay I came across a magnificent Winter's 

 bark tree, the largest which I have ever seen in the channels. Its 

 smooth and almost cylindrical stem was nine feet in circumference, 

 and ran up without branching to a height of thirty feet from the 

 ground. 



In cruising to and fro about the channel we frequently came 

 across whales. They were usually either "finners" or "sperms"; 

 more commonly the former. I saw only one one "right" whale 

 during the many months which we spent in these waters. On 

 the 17th of February we steamed by a school of about twenty 

 "finner" whales, and shortly after we passed through a shoal of 

 small red shrimps {Gaiat/icas), which were so densely clustered 

 together as to give the water quite a scarlet appearance. This 

 accounted for the great gathering of Cetaceans. Skeletons of 

 whales in a very imperfect state were abundant about the shores 



