COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
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of herbage, and studded with groups of banksia, 1819. 
which the colonists call the honeysuckle; the May 21. 
wood of which is useful in ship-building, on ac- 
count of the crooked growth of its stem. 
The banks of the river on both sides were 
thickly wooded; in most parts, the country is 
open and grassy, and is profusely timbered with 
the varieties of eucalyptus that are common at 
Port Jackson. There is, however, a great extent 
of brush land in which the soil is exceedingly 
rich, and in which the trees grow to a large size ; 
these, being covered with parasitical plants and 
creepers of gigantic size, render the forest almost 
impervious : it is in these brushes that the rose- 
wood and cedar-trees grow, and also the fig-tree 
before alluded to ; this last tree is of immense size, 
and is remarkable for having its roots protruding 
from the base of the stem, like huge buttresses, 
to the distance of several yards. 
The natives are numerous, but they appear to 
depend more upon hunting than the sea for their 
subsistence. This I judged from the very inferior 
state of their canoes, which are very much less 
ingeniously formed than even the frail ones of the 
Port Jackson natives ; being merely sheets of 
bark, with the ends slightly gathered up to form 
a shallow concavity, in which they stand, and 
propel them by means of poles. Their huts are 
