3 
The passage between Whitsunday Island and the main land 
is rather narrow but the water is deep, and the land rises on each 
side in high granite jagged ridges of the most picturesque 
character. Cape Gloucester is a granite island which rises 
abruptly from the water into sharp pinnacles and ridges about 
2,000 feet high. In the background is the heavy-looking dark 
mass of Mount Dryander, which is partly metamorphic and 
partly granitic and trappean, and over 3,000 feet high. All 
around Port Denison the view is diversified by many granitic 
peaks and mountains, whose summits are so stony and rugged 
that the bare granite rock is quite conspicuous, and but for the 
climate might be mistaken for a capping of snow. Cape Upstart 
on the north side of Port Denison is just such another abrupt 
mountain mass as Cape Gloucester, rising almost as a precipitous 
ridge out of the sea to about the same height, having a very 
sharp, rugged outline. Beyond this the granitic axis recedes 
from the coast, and the low-lying land is formed of alluvial flats, 
through which the Houghton and the Burdekin drain into the 
sea. Cape Bowling Green is almost level with the water’s edge, 
and the water shoals so gradually that there can be no doubt that 
the alluvial deposits of the river must extend a long distance 
out to sea. The Burdekin drains an immense area. One of its 
main tributaries comes from the Bellenden Ker ranges, and 
another from the south as far as Peak Downs, Mitchell’s Belyando 
River being its main channel. It is a stream with an immense 
bed. In the dry seasons there are three distinct channels, but 
in the rainy season the body of water which comes down it is 
enormous. The sea is quite muddy as far as the Barrier Reef, 
and sometimes little more than brackish. The current is also 
very strong from the river, and it is more than probable that it 
was by this current that the unfortunate Gothenburg steamer 
was in 1874 carried out of her course on to the Barrier Reef. 
Beyond this low-lying land the granite ranges reappear in 
Cape Cleveland, which is a bold headland similar to all the 
other granitic capes. Cleveland Bay succeeds this with a high 
granite island lying outside it, named Magnetic Island. Mount 
Cudtheringa is a high granite peak in the midst of Cleveland 
Bay, but with the exception of some granite outliers, the country 
around it is flat, and rises very slowly towards the main divide. 
North of Cleveland Bay the same series of level country and 
granite outliers continue to Rockingham Bay, at the southern 
part of which the alluvial flats of the Herbert River are found. 
Above the mouth of the Herbert is Hinchinbrook Island, which 
is a narrow range of granitic and trappean mountains, some of 
which rise to over 3,000 feet above the sea. These mountains 
are so steep and rocky that they present only bare and precipitous 
faces of stone. It is only in the gullies that a dense tropical 
vegetation is seen, and this is of the richest description, with 
palm-trees predominating. Nothing can exceed the picturesque 
appearance of the sharp outlines of the mountains which form 
the islands ; their bare slopes of rock and their proximity to 
