270 AUSTRALIA CHAP, XI 
and his tripe. The fish itself was not quite so good as a 
skate, nor was it much inferior. The tripe everybody 
thought excellent. We had it with a dish of the boiled 
leaves of Tetragonia cornuta, which eat as well, or very nearly 
as well, as spinach. 
17th. About ten we were abreast of a large bay, 
the bottom of which was out of sight. The sea here 
suddenly changed from its usual transparency to a dirty 
clay colour, appearing much as if charged with freshes, from 
whence I was led to conclude that the bottom of the bay 
might open into a large river. About it were many smokes, 
especially on the northern side near some remarkable conical 
hills.2 At sunset the land made in one bank, over which 
nothing could be seen. It was very sandy, and carried with 
it no signs of fertility. 
18th. Land this morning very sandy. We could see 
through our glasses that the sands, which lay in great patches 
of many acres each, were movable. Some of them had been 
lately moved, for trees which stood up in the middle of them 
were quite green. Others of a longer standing had many 
stumps sticking out of them, which had been trees killed 
by the sand heaping about their roots. Few fires were seen. 
Two water snakes swam by the ship. They were beauti- 
fully spotted, and in all respects like land snakes, except 
that they had broad flat tails, which probably serve them 
instead of fins in swimming. 
22nd. In the course of the night the tide rose very con- 
siderably. We plainly saw with our glasses that the land 
was covered with palm-nut trees, Pandanus tectorius, which 
we had not seen since we left the islands within the tropics. 
Along shore we saw two men walking, who took no kind 
of notice of us. 
23rd. Wind blew fresh off the land, so cold that our 
cloaks were very necessary in going ashore. When we landed, 
however, the sun soon recovered its influence, and made it 
sufficiently hot ; in the afternoon intolerably so. We landed 
near the mouth of a large lagoon, which ran a good way 
1 Moreton Bay. 2 The Glass Houses. ® Bustard Bay. 
