LITTLE MECATTINA AND MTTTON BAY 



and Audubon was so impressed by the scene 

 that he exaggerated the height of the rocks. 

 He says, "Our harbor is the very represen- 

 tative of the bottom of a large bowl, in the 

 centre of which our vessel is now safely at 

 anchor, surrounded by rocks fully a thousand 

 feet high, and the wildest-looking place I ever 

 was in." According to the chart, the highest 

 peaks, a little way back from the harbor, have 

 an elevation of five hundred and seventy feet, 

 and it is probable that the rocky precipices 

 that rise directly from the water reach a height 

 of only two or three hundred feet. They are 

 splendid rocks, however, and full of crannies 

 and shelves. A pair of ravens were croaking 

 and sailing about, and on the grassy beach 

 at the head of the harbor four full-grown 

 young were feeding. They were probably 

 lineal descendants of the birds seen by Audu- 

 bon. Above this beach a clear cold brook led 

 from a lake, above which was a narrow for- 

 ested valley, thick and impenetrable, in which 

 I could hear the rushing of a brook. What 

 unnumbered centuries it must have taken to 

 make even a feeble grove on these adaman- 

 tine rocks! A black-poll warbler was singing, 

 157 



