Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

536 VAN diemen's land. Feb. 1836. with me a guide, for I failed in a first attempt, from the thickness of the wood. My guide, however, was a stupid fellow, and conducted us to the southern and damp side of the mountain, where the vegetation was very luxuriant, and the labour of the ascent, from the number of rotten trunks, almost as great as on a mountain in Tierra del Fuego or in Chiloe. It cost us five and a half hours of hard climbing before we reached the summit. In many parts the gum- trees grew to a great size, and the whole composed a noble forest. In some of the dampest ravines, tree-ferns flourished in an extraordinary manner ; I saw one which must have been, at least, twenty feet high to the base of the fronds, and was in girth exactly six feet. The foliage of these trees, forming so many most elegant parasols, created a gloomy shade, like that of the first hour of night. The summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3100 feet above the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view ; to the northward the country appeared a mass of wooded moun- tains, of about the same elevation and tame outline with the one on which we were standing : to the south, the outline of the broken land and water, forming many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before us. After staying some hours on the summit, we found a better way to descend, but did not reach the Beagle till eight o'clock, after a severe day's work. February 17th. — The Beagle sailed from Tasmania, and, on the 6th of the ensuing month, reached King George's Sound, situated near the S.W. corner of Australia. We staid there eight days ; and I do not remember, since leaving England, having passed a more dull, uninteresting time. The country, viewed from an eminence, appears a woody plain, with here and there rounded and partly bare hills of granite protruding. One day I went out with a party, in hopes of seeing a kangaroo hunt, and walked over a good many miles of country. Every where we found the soil sandy, and very poor ; it either supported a coarse vegetation of thin.