410 
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL 
is 2 o. at other seasons, the frequency of strong freshes 
Sept. 12. or floods. One of the pieces of drift wood had 
been cut by a sharp instrument. 
Mr. Roe further says, “ From the appearance 
of the country and the steep hills, generally 
about three hundred feet high, among which 
this river winds, there can be little doubt of its 
being, during the rainy season, a considerable 
fresh- water stream ; and as I consider the length 
of its various windings to be twenty-six or twenty- 
seven miles, there is every prospect of its being 
navigable for our boat for at least half that 
distance farther. Fish were plentiful, but prin- 
cipally of that sort which the sailors call 6 cat 
fish of these several were caught. Small birds 
were numerous, together with white cockatoos, 
cuckoos, some birds with very hoarse discordant 
notes, and one whose note resembled the beat- 
ing of a blacksmith’s hammer upon an anvil. At 
daybreak they all exerted themselves in full 
chorus, and I should then have proceeded farther, 
but the tide was half out, and a soft mud-bank 
forty feet broad fronting the shore, cut off our 
communication with the boat.” 
As soon as the ebb-tide began to make, Mr. 
Roe embarked on his return ; and during his 
passage down saw as many as twelve alligators. 
Two were fired at, but the balls glanced off their 
