WHITE— A Sketch of the Life of Samuel White. 23# 



time of the year. There is not one mountain in all the Arus. 

 Had there been a hill of any size it could have been easily 

 .seen from the sea-ward. Tragan is the highest and most 

 undulating, grassy patches of large extent can be seen along 

 the west coast. The islands are composed of soft white 

 stone which looks like limestone, in many parts quite bare, in 

 others covered in black mud or mould, but not to any great 

 depth, and of a vegetable nature, and very rich. Consequently 

 there are no water wells, but water was running or lying 

 everywhere. All along the west coast from end to end there 

 was a good anchorage at this time of the year quite close in 

 shore for a vessel drawing from 10 to 15 feet. The most 

 southern of my anchorages was at the south end of Tragan; 

 from this we dropped anchor in places all along and beyond 

 the island of "Polo Babi", first a quarter of a mile from shore 

 in four fathoms, next a mile from shore in seven fathoms, then 

 a few hundreds of yards from shore in three and a half 

 fathoms. Again at the village of Maykor a quarter of a mile 

 from shore there was four fathoms, and at half a mile there 

 was 15 fathoms. All through the Watalli Channel we bottomed 

 at seven to sixteen fathoms. Along the coast the bottom was 

 rock and .sand, and in the channel it was bare soft rock, over 

 which the chain rumbled when the tide changed ; in one or two 

 places soft mud was found. The beach all along the west 

 coast was either sand or rock. Where sand occurred it was 

 merely a bank covered with low dense vegetation, when over 

 this, a low wet country begins, covered with dense tropical 

 forest. A good deal of rock occurs along the shores of the 

 bay, into which the Watalli Channel enters, and for want of a 

 proper name I called it "Polo Babi Bay". Here the banks 

 are not high, and once over them a low wet scrub is entered, 

 wet at this time of the year, for rain falls nearly every day; 

 but when a fine day or two comes along there is a great dimi- 

 nution in stream and pool, so that I have no doubt that in the 

 drier part of the season the scrubs are quite dry and water 

 scarce, but in July and August the climate is cool and moist, 

 with abundance of water everywhere. There are no rivers, 

 only small creeks, and then not deep, excepting when the salt 

 water flows up them, and these are fringed with mangrove 

 swamps. It was a great wonder to me that there were not 

 more mosquitoes. They did not trouble us very much on board, 

 only in the scrubs, and then not so badly as I have experienced 

 them in many parts of Australia. Possibly they would be 

 more troublesome from December to March. 



