23-5 
English Company's Islands.'] TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
children were perceived on the north-east beach; and on walking 
that way we saw two bark huts, and an elderly man was sitting under Tuesday at 
a tree, near them. He smiled on finding himself discovered, and went 
behind a bush, when a confused noise was heard of women and chil- 
dren making off' into the wood; the man also retreated up the hill, 
and our friendly signs were ineffectual to stop him. In one of the 
huts was a net bag, containing some pieces of gum, bone, and a 
broken spike nail ; and against a neighbouring bush were standing 
three spears, one of which had a number of barbs, and had been 
wrought with some ingenuity. This I took away ; but the rest of the 
arms, with the utensils and furniture of the huts, consisting of the 
aforesaid net bag and a shell to drink out of, were left as we found 
them, with the addition of a hatchet and pocket handkerchief. 
Cotton's, Pobassoo’s, and Astell's Islands, to which our exa- 
minations were limited, are moderately high, woody land ; they 
slope down nearly to the water on their west sides, but on the east, 
and more especially the south-east, they present steep cliffs ; and 
the same conformation seemed to prevail in the other islands. The 
stone of the upper parts is grit or sand- stone, of a close texture ; 
but the lower part of the cliff's is argillaceous and stratified, splitting 
in layers of different thicknesses, from that of a shilling to two or 
three feet ; and the strata dip to the westward, about 15 0 . On break- 
ing some pieces out of the cliffs, I found them curiously marked 
with the representation of flowers and trees, owing, as I am told, to 
manganese or iron ore inserting itself partially into the fissures. The 
layers are of a reddish colour, resembling flat tiles, and might, I 
conceive, be used as such, almost without any preparation ; there 
are enough of them to cover a whole town, and the sand stone at 
the top of the cliff's is equally well calculated for building the walls 
of the houses. 
The upper surfaces of these islands are barren ; but in the 
vallies, down which ran streams of water at this time, there is a 
tolerable soil. One of these vallies, at the south end of Cotton’s 
