Northern District of Queensland. 193 



hair. There is no opening by which these creatures can have 

 entered; and, that they are prisoners is proved by the fact that 

 those figs I plucked and brought away enclose now their in- 

 habitants dead and embalmed. There is no appearance of 

 them, or of their ovce or larva, in the unripe figs. The moment 

 the fig is opened they vanish, and it may then be eaten. 

 Three miles further we again came upon a creek, rising at 

 the foot of a hill about a thousand feet high, which, as usual, 

 consisted of porphyry. We ascended it next morning, and ob- 

 tained one of the most magnificent views that can possibly be 

 conceived. The vast ocean was, as it were, lying at our feet, 

 and clear and smooth as glass, glittering in the sun of the 

 early morning, and studded with innumerable islands, great 

 and small, far as the eye could reach. From this hill Mount 

 Funnel bears N. 13° W. That singular island, or ocean py- 

 ramid, known as "West Hill," N. 35° E., thirty or forty 

 miles out in the sea, in theN.E., is a most remarkable island 

 with level top, the northern end overhanging the perpen- 

 dicular ten or fifteen degrees. From this point we returned, 

 and keeping more inland, found that the country was much 

 better, and nearly every creek was running. 



In reference to the blacks, although we found in many 

 places their tracks, like those of cattle, and notwithstanding that 

 we frequently heard them by night, I think that the portion 

 of the coast we travelled over is, upon the whole, but thinly 

 inhabited. 



On the 21st of October we again started from Marlborough, 

 to proceed inland. To the west the whole country is un- 

 occupied. We followed a marked tree line through an in- 

 differently grassed box forest for ten miles, when we came 

 upon a clay-slate formation — the slate almost vertical, or 

 dipping slightly to the east, and the stratification trending to 

 the west of north, with abundance of gold-bearing quartz on 

 the ranges, and in veins. This country is on the west and 

 south-west of the same formation I noticed when along the 

 coast, and proves that there is a considerable extent of 

 ground in all probability auriferous. Should this prove to 

 be the case, there is abundance of water in the creeks for 

 washing. This formation continued for eight or ten miles to 

 the west, when we came upon a fine, well grassed, openly 

 timbered country, watered by Apis Creek, and numerous fine 

 waterholes. A very high and almost impassable, range 

 (Connaris Range) of porphyry divides this fine country from 

 the river Isaacs. From its lofty summit I had expected to 

 a a 



