Certificates granted to convicts
Reasons for so doing
Unruly behaviour of the Irish
Agricultural concerns look ill
The _Norfolk_ sloop returns from Van Dieman's Land
Particulars
Twofold Bay described
The natives there
Kent's Group
Furneaux's Islands
Preservation Island
Curious petrifaction there
Cape Barren Island
The wombat described
1799.]
January.] On the second of this month, certificates were granted to
such convicts as had completed their several terms of transportation.
That none might have it in their power to make a plea of any injustice
being exercised upon them with respect to that critical point their
servitude, it had been made a rule, three or four times in the year, to
issue discharge certificates to such as were found, on consulting the
proper documents, to be entitled to them; and, if desirous of being at
their own disposal, to strike them off from the victualling books. Many
convicts having been sent out, who had not more than two years to serve
after their arrival, proved, by claiming their discharge, a considerable
drawback on field-labour, as well in Norfolk Island as in New South
Wales. But this was not the only evil. In this way there were let loose
upon the public a number of idle and worthless characters, who, not
having any means of getting out of the country, became a dangerous and
troublesome pest. They refused all kind of labour, but continued to form
connections with the equally worthless part of the other inhabitants,
who, from their domestic situations, had an opportunity of affording the
best information where robberies and burglaries could be most readily
committed. They also consumed a vast proportion of the provision which
was raised in the colony. Still, as the law had spent its force against
them, there was no denying them the restoration of their rights as free
people. The convicts in general had suffered much through want of
clothing and bedding. Indeed, during the late harvest, several gangs were
seen labouring in the fields, as free of clothing of any kind as the
savages of the country. This had made them insolent; and anonymous
letters were dropped, in which were threatenings of what would be done at
the proper season.
At this time, when the certificates were granted, a numerous body of the
Irish convicts, many of whom had but lately arrived, insisted that 'their
times were out,' and could not be persuaded that they were mistaken by
any remonstrance or argument. They grew noisy and insolent, and even made
use of threats; upon which a few of the most forward and daring were
secured, and instantly punished; after which they were ordered to go
peaceably back to their work. They had also taken up the idea that
Ireland had shaken off its connection with England, and that they were no
longer to be considered as convicts under the British government. This
was a most pernicious idea to be entertained by such a lawless set of
people, and required the strong arm of government to eradicate it.
Agricultural concerns at this time wore a most unpromising appearance.
The wheat proved little better than straw or chaff, and the maize was
burnt up in the ground for want of rain. From the establishment of the
settlement, so much continued drought and suffocating heat had not been
experienced. The country was now in flames; the wind northerly and
parching; and some showers of rain, which fell on the 7th, were of no
advantage, being immediately taken up again by the excessive heat of the
sun.
On the 12th, the _Norfolk_ sloop arrived, with Lieutenant Flinders
and Mr. Bass, from the examination of Van Diemen's land.
As the result of this little voyage was the complete knowledge of the
existence of a strait separating Van Diemen's land from the continent of
New Holland, it may not be improper to enter with some degree of
minuteness into the particulars of it; and the writer of these pages
feels much gratification in being enabled to do this, from the accurate
and pleasing journal of Mr. Bass, with the perusal and use of which he
has been favoured.
The _Norfolk_ sailed, as has been already stated, upon this voyage
of discovery about the 7th of October last, with Lieutenant Flinders and
Mr. Bass; and on the 11th, when nearly off Cape Howe, being met by a
fresh gale at SW they bore up, and anchored in Twofold Bay. This bay had
been visited by Mr. Bass when he was on the coast in the whale boat; but
he had not at that time so good an opportunity of examining it as he
desired, and now had. He found Twofold Bay situated at the southern end
of a short chain of hummocky hills, one part of which is much more
conspicuous than the rest, and lies immediately behind the bay. The land
on the west side, being a part of this chain of hills, is high and rocky.
The shore is divided into steep cliff heads, with small intermediate
beaches; the one formed by the most prominent of the ridges, the others
by the sand thrown up at the foot of their valleys. Behind the beaches
are ponds of brackish water.
The abruptness and sudden rise of the hills for the most part permit the
vegetable earth to be washed down into the vallies as fast as it is
formed. Some of the more gradual slopes retain a sufficiency of it to
produce a thick coat of tolerably succulent grass; but the soil partakes
too much of the stony quality of the higher parts to be capable of
cultivation.
The dark luxuriant foliage of the valleys points out the advantages which
they had received from the impoverished hills. Their soil is rich and
deep, but their extent is narrow and limited. Some three or four hundred
acres of excellent soil might be found upon the edges of the ponds, and
by the sides of the occasional drains that supply them with the fresh
part of their water.
Both hill and valley produce large timber and brush-wood of various
heights; upon the hills, the brush grows in small clumps; while in the
valleys it not only covers the whole surface, but is also bound together
by creeping vines, of every size between small twine and a seven inch
hawser.
In the SW corner of the bay, is a lagoon, or small inlet, that
communicates with the sea, through the beach at the back of which it
lies. The chain of hills here runs back to some little distance from the
water, and leaves a few square miles of rather good ground, through which
the inlet was found to take its course in a winding direction to the SW
for six or eight miles, where it ends in small swamps and marshes. Large
boats might enter this place at a third flood, and proceed to the farther
part of it. Upon its banks from five to seven hundred acres of a light
sandy soil might be picked out, in patches of from fifty to a hundred
acres each; but on the side next the mountain it soon became stony, and
on that next the lagoon it was wet and salt.
The country along the back of the bay lies in rounded stony hills
scarcely fit for pasturage, but covered with timber, and patches of short
brush.
On the south side was another shallow inlet, larger than that on the SW
running in by the end of a beach, and winding along to the SSW with
little or no cultivable or low ground upon its borders. The returning
tide did not allow time enough to proceed to the head of it.
On the eastern side, the hills being neither steep nor prominent, some
extensive slopes of tolerably good, though sandy soil, have been formed.
Several which extended to the water, being well covered with grass and
thinly set with timber, had a pleasing appearance from the bay, and
resembled some of the most beautiful parts of Mount Edgecumbe, near
Plymouth. Speaking generally of the land round the bay, it might be said
to be much more barren that productive; that there are several patches of
tolerably good, and some few of excellent soil; but by far the greater
part is incapable of cultivation, and fit only for pasturage.
The most common timber is a sort of gum tree, the bark of which along the
trunk is that of the iron bark of Port Jackson; and its leaf, that of the
blue gum tree; but its branches toward the head are of a yellow colour,
smooth, and resembling the barked limbs of trees. The wood is longer
grained, and more tough, splitting easier and more true than any other
species of the gum tree.
The natives are, in person, similar to those living about Port Jackson,
but their language was perfectly unintelligible. They used canoes, of
which they seemed very careful; for on his rowing round the point of Snug
Cove, when Mr. Bass was on his first visit to this bay in the whale boat,
a party of them paddled hastily on shore, taking their canoes upon their
heads, and running off with them into the woods. They, however, did not
appear so shy of their visitors now as they had formerly been; and there
was reason to believe that a friendly intercourse might have been easily
established with them.
Not meeting with any grass trees, and the few spears that were seen being
made of solid wood, it may be conjectured that the light grass reed
spear used by the natives of Port Jackson is unknown among these people,
as well as the use of the throwing-stick.
But very few marks of the kangaroo were seen. Both quadrupeds and birds
appeared to be less numerous here than in other places. The dogs found a
porcupine ant-eaters, but they could make no impression on him; he
escaped from them by burrowing in the loose sand, not head foremost, but
sinking himself directly downwards, and presenting his prickly back
opposed to his adversaries.
There were a few ducks, teal, herons, cranes, and a bird named from its
bill the Red-bill, upon the lagoons, with some small flights of curlew
and plover of a beautiful feather.
The rocks consist of hardened clay, in which are mixed great numbers of
small stones, variously tinged, some with red, others with yellow. Small
portions of calcareous spar lie scattered about the surface of the rocky
ground; strata of which are deposited irregularly in fissures formed in
the body of the rocks themselves.
Leaving Twofold Bay upon a favourable shift of wind, the sloop proceeded
to the southward, and on the 17th made a small cluster of islands, in
latitude 38 degrees 16 minutes, which now bears the name of Kent's Group
(a compliment to the commander of his Majesty's ship _Supply_).
These are six or seven in number, and of various sizes. Their height is
very considerable, and as irregular in figure as can well be imagined in
land whose hummocks are no one of them more lofty than another. This
small group appears to be formed of granite, which is imperfectly
concealed by long straggling dwarfish brush, and some few still more
diminutive trees, and seems cursed with a sterility that might safely bid
defiance to Chinese industry itself. Nature is either working very slowly
with those islands, or has altogether ceased to work upon them, since a
more wild deserted place is not easily to be met with. Even the birds
seemed not to frequent them in their usual numbers. There was, in short,
nothing that could tempt our explorers to land.
Having passed Kent's Group standing to the southward, the next morning
Furneaux's Islands were in sight, and on the following day they anchored
at Preservation Island, which is one of them. These islands, from what
was seen of them during this run along their shore, and what had been
seen of them before by Mr. Bass, appear to consist of two kinds,
perfectly dissimilar in figure, and most probably of very unequal ages,
but alike in the materials of which they are formed. Both kinds are of
granite; but the one is low, and rather level, with a soil of sand
covered with low brush and tufted grass: the other is remarkably high,
bold, and rocky, and cut into a variety of singular peaks and knobs. Some
little vegetable soil lies upon these, and the vegetation is large; trees
even of a tolerable size are produced in some places. There are attached
to some parts of these high islands slips of low sandy land, of a similar
height with the lower islands, and probably coeval with them.
Preservation Island, which takes its respectable name from having
preserved the crew of the ship _Sydney Cove_, arranges itself in the
humble class of islands, and is of a very moderate height. A surface of
sand, varying in depth, and mixed in different scanty proportions with
vegetable soil, scarcely hides from view the base, which is of granite.
In several places vast blocks of this stone lie scattered about, as free
from vegetation and the injuries of weather as if they had fallen but
yesterday: and, what is remarkable, most of them, probably all, are
evidently detached from the stone upon which they rest, so entirely that
they might be dragged from the places where they lie, if it were thought
worth while to apply a power sufficient to produce so useless an effect.
It should seem then that these loose blocks have fallen from some place
higher than that upon which they were found; but that is impossible, for
they are higher than any other part of the island. And the supposition
that the injuries of the air and the rain caused the removal of that part
of the granite which might originally have been of a corresponding height
with these remaining blocks, seems hardly admissible in the present
instance. Perhaps subterraneous or volcanic fire may have caused this
curious appearance.
The great bulk of these blocks renders them so conspicuous, that the
attention is first struck with them upon approaching the island. But,
besides granite, there is on the north side, where the island is
particularly low and narrow, a slip of calcareous earth, of a few hundred
yards in length, which discovers itself near the broken surface of the
water. It is not for the most part pure, for broken pieces of the granite
are mixed with it in various proportions. Some parts are a mere mass of
these broken pieces cemented together by the calcareous matter; whilst
others are an almost perfect chalk, and are capable of being burnt into
excellent lime. Broken sea shells and other exuviae of marine animals are
apparent throughout the whole mass.
Upon the beach at the foot of this chalky rock, was found a very
considerable quantity of the black metallic particles which appear
in the granite as black shining specks, and are in all probability
grains of tin.
To find this small bed of the remains of shell animals, of which chalk is
formed wherever found, in such an unexpected situation, excited some
surprise; and Mr. Bass endeavoured to investigate the cause of this
deposit, by examining the form of the neighbouring parts of the island.
The result of his inquiries and conjectures amounted to this: that as
traces of the sea, and of the effects of running waters, were plainly
discernible in many parts of the island, and more particularly in the
vicinity of this deposit of chalk and granite, it seemed highly probable
that it had been formed by two streams of the tide, which, when the
island was yet beneath the surface of the sea, having swept round a large
lump of rocks, then met and formed an eddy, where every substance would
fall to the bottom. The lump of rocks is now a rocky knoll, which runs
tapering from the opposite side of the island toward the chalk. On each
side of it is a gap, through which the two streams appear to have passed.
The vegetation on the island seems brown and starved. It consists of a
few stunted trees; several patches of brush, close set and almost
impenetrable; large tufts of sour and wiry grass, and abundance of low
saltish plants, chiefly of the creeping kind.
A small spot upon the east end of the island presented a phenomenon which
seemed not easily explicable by any known laws of that class of natural
history to which it alone was referable.
Amidst a patch of naked sand, upon one of the highest parts of the
island, at not less than 100 feet above the level of the sea, within the
limits of a few hundred yards square, were lying scattered about a number
of short broken branches of old dead trees, of from one to three inches
in diameter, and seemingly of a kind similar to the large brush wood.
Amid these broken branches were seen sticking up several white stony
stumps, of sizes ranging between the above diameters, and in height from
a foot to a foot and a half. Their peculiar form, together with a number
of prongs of their own quality, projecting in different directions from
around their base, and entering the ground in the manner of roots,
presented themselves to the mind of an observer, with a striking
resemblance to the stumps and roots of small trees. These were extremely
brittle, the slightest blow with a stick, or with each other, being
sufficient to break them short off; and when taken into the hand, many of
them broke to pieces with their own weight.
On being broken transversely, it was immediately seen that the internal
part was divided into interior or central, exterior or cortical. The
exterior part, which in different specimens occupied various proportions
of the whole, resembled a fine white and soft grit-stone; but acids being
applied, showed it to be combined with a considerable portion of
calcareous matter. The interior or central part was always circular, but
seldom found of the same diameter, or of the same composition, on any two
stumps. In some the calcareous and sandy matter had taken such entire
possession, that every fragment of the wood was completely obliterated;
but yet a faint central ring remained. In others was a centre of chalk,
beautifully white, that crumbled between the fingers to the finest
powder; some consisted of chalk and brown earth, in various quantities,
and some others had detained a few frail portions of their woody fibres,
the spaces between which were filled up with chalky earth.
It appeared, that when the people of the _Sydney Cove_ first came
upon the island, the pieces of dead branches that at this time were lying
round the stumps, then formed, with them, the stem and branches of dead
trees complete. But by the time Mr. Bass visited the place, the hands of
curiosity, and the frolics of an unruly horse that was saved from the
wreck, had reduced them to the state already described.
Mr. Bass had been told from good authority, that when the trees were in a
complete state, the diameter of the dead wood of the stem that rose
immediately from the stoney part was equal to the diameter of that part;
and also that a living leaf was seen upon the uppermost branches of one
of them. But he could never learn whether the stony part of the stem was
of an equal height in all the trees.
To ascertain to what depth the petrification had extended, Mr. Bass
scratched away the sand from the foot of many of the stumps, and in no
instance found it to have proceeded more than three or four inches
beneath the surface of the sand, as it then lay; for at that depth the
brown and crumbling remains of the root came into view. There were,
indeed, parts of the roots which had undergone an alteration similar to
that which had taken place in the stems: but these tended to establish
the limits of the petrifying power; for they had felt it only either at
their first outset from the bottom of the stems, or when, being
obstructed in their progress, they had of necessity arched upwards toward
the surface.
In attempting to account for the cause that had operated to produce this
change in the structure of the lower parts of the stems of these trees,
Mr. Bass feels the utmost diffidence. He found that all his conjectures
which were best supported by existing facts, led him to place them among
petrifications; although no strict analogy could be seen between them and
the subjects usually met with of this kind.
Admitting them, however, as petrifications, it is certain that there must
once have existed a pond in which the petrifying water was contained; but
the ground in their neighbourhood retained no positive traces of any such
receptacle. There were, indeed, near them, some few lumps or banks
consisting of sand, and a little vegetable earth which was held together
by dead roots of small trees, and elevated above the rest of the ground,
to the height of five, six, or eight feet; but the relative position of
these with each other was so confused and irregular, that nothing but the
necessity of a once existing reservoir could ever lead any one to
conjecture that these might have been parts of its bank. Mr. Bass,
however, rather concluded that this must have been the case, and that the
remainder of the bank had been torn away, and the pond itself annihilated
by some violent effort of an unknown power.
Notwithstanding the narrow limits of the island, abundance of small
kangaroos were found to inhabit its brushy parts; but so many had been
destroyed by the people of the _Sydney Cove_, that they had now
become scarce.
The sooty petrel had appropriated a certain grassy part of the island to
herself, and retained her position with a degree of obstinacy not easily
to be overcome. For although it so happened, that the storehouse for the
wrecked cargo was erected upon the spot, and the people for more than a
year drew the favourite part of their food from these birds, and were
besides continually walking over their habitations, yet at the end of
that time the returning flights in the evening were as numerous as they
had been observed to be upon their first arrival.
When Mr. Hamilton, the commander of the _Sydney Cove_, quitted the
house, he left two hens sitting upon their eggs, some breeding pigeons,
and a bag of rice; but no traces were now to be discovered either of the
birds or their food. It is probable, that so long as this little colony
continued within doors, it did well; but that, when forced by its
necessities to go abroad in quest of food, it fell a quiet sacrifice to
the rapacity of the hawks.
Several snakes with venomous fangs were found here; but, no person having
been bitten by them, the degree of their power was unknown.
The water of the island was thought to have been injurious to the health
of the people of the _Sydney Cove_. It was supposed to contain
arsenic, which was highly probable from an experiment that was made with
the metallic particles, which were taken to be tin. A large fume of what
bore many marks of arsenic arose from the crucible during the time of
smelting it. Water was very scarce while these people were upon the
island; but, owing to some unusual falls of rain, several little runs and
swamps were found by Mr. Bass; and a low piece of ground where they had
deposited their dead was now a pond of an excellent quality.
Although he had seen but few of the low islands of Furneaux, yet Mr. Bass
had not any doubt but that this account of Preservation Island would in
general answer for the description of any of them.
He next proceeds to describe what little he saw of Cape Barren Island,
which he understood, from the people of the _Nautilus_ snow, who had
been there sealing, was an exact specimen of those of the higher kind, so
far as they had observed of them.
Cape Barren Island, which takes its name from the cape so called by
Captain Furneaux, is a small island when compared with that lying to
the northward of it. From what was seen of it in the sloop, it could only
be conjectured that these two were separate islands; but Mr. Bishop had
passed in the _Nautilus_ through the channel that divides them.
Mr. Bass did not land upon the large island, and it is only of the
southern end of Cape Barren Island that he could speak from his own
particular observation.
This island is one of those of the higher kind that consist of both high
and low land. The high part is composed of granite, in many places almost
bare, in others poorly clothed with moderate sized gum trees, which draw
their support through some small quantity of vegetable earth lodged by
the broken blocks and fragments of the stone, and some straggling
brush-wood shooting up round the trees, and completing the appearance of
a continued vegetation.
The base of the low part is granite; its surface chiefly sand; its
produce, variety of brush, with some few small gum trees, and a species
of fir, that grows tall and straight to the height of 20 or 25 feet.
There are within the body of the brush several clear spots, where the
ground is partly rocky or sandy, partly wet and spongy. These are
somewhat enlivened by beautiful flowering heath, and low shrubs, but have
upon the whole a dark sombrous aspect, too much resembling the barren
heaths of Hampshire.
A grass tree grows here, similar in every respect to that about Port
Jackson, except that no reed, neither living nor dead, could be found to
belong to it. It is certain, however, that there must be a reed, or a
flowering part of some kind. In the brushes, where the sandy soil is
somewhat ameliorated by the decay of vegetation, a few tufts of
indifferent grass might be seen; but the greater part of it was the
coarse wiry sort that grows in hassocks.
It is singular, that a place wherein food seemed to be so scarce should
yet be so thickly inhabited by the small brush kangaroo, and a new
quadruped, which was also a grass-eater.
This animal, being a new one, appears to deserve a particular
description. The Wombat (or, as it is called by the natives of Port
Jackson, the Womback) is a squat, thick, short-legged, and rather
inactive quadruped, with great appearance of stumpy strength, and
somewhat bigger than a large turnspit dog. Its figure and movements, if
they do not exactly resemble those of the bear, at least strongly remind
one of that animal.
Its length, from the tip of the tail to the tip of the nose, is thirty-one
inches, of which its body takes up twenty-three and five-tenths. The head
is seven inches, and the tail five-tenths. Its circumference behind the
forelegs, twenty-seven inches; across the thickest part of the belly,
thirty-one inches. Its weight by hand is somewhat between twenty-five and
thirty pounds. The hair is coarse, and about one inch or one inch and
five tenths in length, thinly set upon the belly, thicker on the back and
head, and thickest upon the loins and rump; the colour of it a light
sandy brown, of varying shades, but darkest along the back.
The head is large and flattish, and, when looking the animal full in the
face, seems, excluding the ears, to form nearly an equilateral triangle,
any side of which is about seven inches and five tenths in length, but
the upper side, or that which constitutes the breadth of the head, is
rather the shortest. The hair upon the face lies in regular order, as if
it were combed, with its ends pointed upwards in a kind of radii, from
the nose their centre.
The ears are sharp and erect, of two inches and three-tenths in length,
stand well asunder, and are in nowise disproportionate. The eyes are
small, and rather sunken than prominent, but quick and lively. They are
placed about two inches and five tenths asunder, a little below the
centre of the imaginary triangle towards the nose. The nice co-adaptation
of their ciliary processes, which are covered with a fine hair, seems to
afford the animal an extraordinary power of excluding whatever might be
hurtful.
The nose is large or spreading, the nostrils large, long, and capable of
being closed. They stand angularly with each other, and a channel is
continued from them towards the upper lip, which is divided like the
hare's. The whiskers are rather thick and strong, and are in length from
two to three inches and five tenths.
The opening of its mouth is small; it contains five long grass-cutting
teeth in the front of each jaw, like those of the kangaroo; within them
is a vacancy for an inch or more, then appear two small canine teeth of
equal height with, and so much similar to, eight molars situated behind,
as scarcely to be distinguishable from them. The whole number in both
jaws amount to twenty-four.
The neck is thick and short, and greatly restrains the motions of the
head, which, according to the common expression, looks as if it was stuck
upon the shoulders.
From the neck the back arches a little as far as the loins, whence
it goes off at a flat slope to the hindmost parts, where not any tail
is visible. A tail, however, may be found by carefully passing the
finger over the flat slope in a line with the backbone. After separating
the hairs, it is seen of some five tenths of an inch in length, and
from three to one tenth of an inch in diameter, naked, except for a few
short fine hairs near its end. This curious tall seemed to hold a much
bolder proportion in the young than in the full-grown animal.
The fore legs are very strong and muscular: their length, to the sole of
the paw, is five inches five tenths, and the distance between them is
five inches and five tenths. The paws are fleshy, round, and large, being
one inch and nine tenths in diameter. Their claws are five in number,
attached to as many short digitations. The three middle claws are strong,
and about eight or nine tenths of an inch in length; the thumb and little
finger claws are also strong, but shorter than the others, being only
from six to seven tenths of an inch. The fleshy root of the thumb claw is
smaller and more flexible than the others. The sole of the paw is hard,
and the upper part is covered with the common hair, down to the roots of
the claws which it overhangs. The hind legs are less strong and muscular
than the fore; their length, to the sole, is five inches and five tenths;
the distance between, seven inches and five tenths. The hind paw is
longer than the fore, but not less fleshy; its length is two inches and
seven tenths, its breadth two inches and six tenths. The claws are four
in number: the three inner ones are less strong, but about two tenths of
an inch longer than the longest of the fore claws; and there is a fleshy
spur in the place of a thumb claw. The whole paw has a curve, which
throws its fore part rather inward.
In size the two sexes are nearly the same, but the female is perhaps
rather the heaviest.
In the opinion of Mr. Bass, this Wombat seemed to be very economically
made; but he thought it unnecessary to give an account of its internal
structure in his journal.
This animal has not any claim to swiftness of foot, as most men could run
it down. Its pace is hobbling or shuffling, something like the awkward
gait of a bear. In disposition it is mild and gentle, as becomes a
grass-eater; but it bites hard, and is furious when provoked. Mr. Bass
never heard its voice but at that time; it was a low cry, between a
hissing and a whizzing, which could not be heard at a distance of more
than thirty or forty yards. He chased one, and with his hands under his
belly suddenly lifted him off the ground without hurting him, and laid
him upon his back along his arm, like a child. It made no noise, nor any
effort to escape, not even a struggle. Its countenance was placid and
undisturbed, and it seemed as contented as if it had been nursed by Mr.
Bass* from its infancy. He carried the beast upwards of a mile, and often
shifted him from arm to arm, sometimes laying him upon his shoulder, all
of which he took in good part; until, being obliged to secure his legs
while he went into the brush to cut a specimen of a new wood, the
creature's anger arose with the pinching of the twine; he whizzed with
all his might, kicked and scratched most furiously, and snapped off a
piece from the elbow of Mr. Bass's Jacket with his grass-cutting teeth.
Their friendship was here at an end, and the creature remained implacable
all the way to the boat, ceasing to kick only when he was exhausted.
[* The kangaroo, and some other animals in New South Wales, were
remarkable for being domesticated as soon as taken.]
This circumstance seemed to indicate, that with kind treatment the Wombat
might soon be rendered extremely docile, and probably affectionate; but
let his tutor beware of giving him provocation, at least if he should be
full grown.
Besides Furneaux's Islands, the Wombat inhabits, as has been seen, the
mountains to the westward of Port Jackson. In both these places its
habitation is under ground, being admirably formed for burrowing, but to
what depth it descends does not seem to be ascertained. According to the
account given of it by the natives, the wombat of the mountains is never
seen during the day, but lives retired in his hole, feeding only in the
night; but that of the islands is seen to feed in all parts of the day.
His food is not yet well known; but it seems probable that he varies it,
according to the situation in which he may be placed. The stomachs of
such as Mr. Bass examined were distended with the coarse wiry grass, and
he, as well as others, had seen the animal scratching among the dry ricks
of sea-weed thrown up upon the shores, but could never discover what it
was in search of. Now the inhabitant of the mountains can have no
recourse to the sea-shore for his food, nor can he find there any wiry
grass of the islands, but must live upon the food that circumstances
present to him.
The annexed representation of this new and curious addition to the
animals of New South Wales was taken from a living subject, which was a
female, and had the characteristic mark which classed it with the opossum
tribe, the pouch or bag for its young.
Cape Barren Island, besides the kangaroo and wombat, is inhabited by the
porcupine ant-eater; a rat with webbed feet; paroquets, and small birds
unknown at Port Jackson, some few of which were of beautiful plumage.
Black snakes with the venomous fangs were numerous upon the edges of the
brush. The rocks toward the sea were covered with fur-seals of great
beauty. This species of seal seemed to approach nearest to that named by
naturalists the Falkland Island Seal.
'In point of animated life nature seems (says Mr. Bass) to have acted so
oddly with this and the neighbouring islands, that if their rich stores
were thoroughly ransacked, I doubt not but the departments of natural
history would be enlarged by more new and valuable specimens than they
ever before acquired from any land of many times their extent.'