side of the Road, I named after the first lieutenant of the Investigator,
now Captain Fowler.

Under Mount Inspection, a hill 105 feet high, and the most remarkable
feature hereabouts, on the South-East extreme of Sweers Island, a party
of twelve natives was observed as we passed. They gazed silently at us,
making no demonstration of joy, fear, anger, or surprise. It is possible
they may have been stupefied by the appearance of that wonderful creation
of man's ingenuity--a ship; in their eyes it must have seemed a being
endowed with life walking the waters, for purposes to them
incomprehensible, on a mission to the discovery of which they could not
even apply the limited faculties they possessed. Fortunately or
unfortunately for them--according as we determine on the value of
civilization to the aboriginal races of the South--they did not possess
the fatal, or salutary, curiosity that prompts most men to attempt
fathoming the depth of whatever is mysterious. Restrained by their fears,
or by their ignorant, or philosophical indifference, they did not again
show themselves: and though when we landed we once or twice thought we
heard sounds of life in our vicinity, the natives of the island never
again came under our observation. It is remarkable that the same
circumstance happened to Flinders. He also perceived human beings at a
distance; but when he endeavoured to communicate with them, they retired,
as he mentions, to some of the caverns that exist on the island, and were
seen no more.

SWEERS ISLAND.

Sweers Island appeared to be very woody, and bounded by low dark cliffs
on the north-east side. We found a long extent of foul ground, with a dry
reef near its outer end, extending off two miles in a South 33 degrees