WATERLOO BAY. 431 



as the natives had never been seen in those parts. 

 There can, indeed, be little to tempt them to wan- 

 der thither ; for there are neither kangaroos nor 

 wallabies, and but few birds. Among the most 

 curious of those belonging to the land, is a kind of 

 finch, with a black head, yellow beak, a dark brown 

 back, and dirty white belly ; across the wings and 

 arching over the back, at the stump of the tail, was 

 a stripe of white. 



Cape Wellington, the eastern projection of the 

 Promontory, forms the north point of Waterloo Bay, 

 which is wide and spacious. These names were 

 suggested by the fact that the day of our anchoring 

 there was the anniversary of one of the greatest 

 triumphs ever achieved by British arms. At the 

 head of the bay, lies the low valley, three miles in 

 length, which stretches across the promontory 

 and forms a very conspicuous break in the high 

 land. On the northern side of it, the highest hill, 

 Mount Wilson, rises abruptly until its woody crest 

 reaches an elevation of 2350 feet. On the southern, 

 was a ridge strewn over with immense boulders of 

 granite, one, near where I stood, measuring eighty 

 feet in height, and resting with such apparent inse- 

 curity, that little seemed required to send it rolling 

 and crashing into the valley below, along which a 

 rivulet winds, and falls into the sea at the north 

 end of a sandy beach, forming the head of Waterloo 

 Bay. The depth in the middle of the latter is 12 

 fathoms, muddy bottom ; it lies four miles from the 



