NOTES BY JAMES BACKHOUSE WALKER. 



aw 



itself. The country inland is poor, almost without water, 

 covered with thin gum forest, scrub, -and meagre grass. 

 It is only the shore that is interesting. The rocky head- 

 lands, cliffs, and islands, against which the ocean dashes, 

 are rent and scarred by sudden fissures and chasms, into 

 which the waves rush roaring and tumbling. Between 

 the points lie a variety of lovely bays; now a broad 

 white beach with long rollers of breaking surf, now a 

 rocky nook, now a quiet and sheltered cove. 



Our centre of observation was the camping ground 

 within The Narrows, from whence we looked out over 

 the broad expanse of Blackmail's Bay. This extensive 

 inlet or arm of the sea is shallow and full of shoals and 

 sandbanks, which make the navigation even of a boat 

 dangerous to the inexperienced. It is shut in from the 

 sea by a long tongue of land and by shoals, leaving only 

 a small outlet very appropriately called " The Narrows, 

 through which the tide rushes with great force. Early 

 on the first morning after the ships had come to an 

 anchor the two boats, under the command of Pilot 

 Francis Jacobszoon, rowed through this narrow inlet to 

 explore the new-found country. The pilot's description 

 of the watering places where the water trickled so slowly 

 that they could with difficulty fill a bowl is thoroughly 

 characteristic of the eastern shores of Blackmail's Bay. 

 In the evening Pilot Jacobszoon returned on board with 

 his collection of strange vegetables, and his report of the 

 well-wooded country, the great trees scarred by fire, with 

 marks on their bark of the steps of gigantic climbers, 

 whom they had not seen, but whose mysterious voices 

 they had heard. 



The various localities mentioned in Tasman's journal 

 were easily readied from our camp. Outside " The 

 Narrows "the shore rises in high cliffs, at the foot of 

 which a broad rocky shelf affords access to little nooks,^ 

 which, in the early days of the colony, were the sites of 

 stations for bay whaling, and are still known as Gardiner's 

 and Watson's Fisheries. Some two miles from The 

 Narrows is Cape Paul Lamanon. A fishing excursion 

 to the neighbourhood gave me an opportunity of landing 

 on the Cape. It is a low point, the soil of which is 

 stony and arid, covered with small timber and rough 

 scrub. From the Cape a short walk took me to the little 

 cove marked on the maps as Prince of Wales Bay. It, 

 was on the shore of this little cove (cleene bochtien), 

 situated to the west-south-west of Tasman's anchorage, 

 that the Dutch flag was planted two centuries and a half 

 ago. The shores of the bay on each side of the entrance 



