FOLIAGE AND BIRDS. 
205 
like arrows. I spent some time amongst them, and 
gave them a few trifling presents, but could obtain 
little information ; for their intellectual capacities ap- 
peared very low, and they showed but little interest 
or curiosity in the visits that had been paid them. 
Their food usually consists of a fruit resembling 
a large yellow plum, mealy and insipid, and a species 
of mangrove. At low water the women generally 
disperse in search of shell-fish on the mud flats, or 
amongst the mangrove swamps ; and the men oc- 
casionally fish either with the spear or hook and 
line. 
The dull and sombre vegetation of Australia 
spreads all over Cape York and the immediate 
adjacent islands. Wide forests of large but ragged- 
stemmed gum-trees, with their almost leafless and 
quite shadeless branches, are the principal charac- 
teristics ' of this vegetation ; here and there are 
gullies with jungles of more umbrageous foliage, 
and a few ragged stunted palms. Across the Straits, 
on its northern shore, the contrast is very great, for 
travellers tell us not a gum-tree is to be seen, but that 
the woods are close and lofty, and afford the deepest 
and most refreshing shade, and are often matted 
into impenetrable thickets by creepers and under- 
growth, and adorned with varied foliage, such as 
cocoa-nut, plantain, bamboo, and other plants, not 
only useful but also beautiful. 
Birds were plentiful, and very interesting, and I 
