not leave the colony for some time, and filled a local appointment. On 24th July, 1839, the Government Resident at King George's Sound, Sir Richard Spencer, C.B., died after forty-eight hours' illness. Captain Grey was appointed to the vacant office, which he filled for several months, and returned to England late in 1840.
Sir Richard Spencer was not merely identified with Albany in his official capacity. By his enterprise he set an example which was soon widely followed. He introduced stock, cultivated the soil, and encouraged settlement. Though there were but seventeen people with a few sheep and other stock in the district when he entered it, at his death there were 139 settlers, 103 cattle, 2000 sheep, 18 horses, 15 donkeys, and pigs and poultry in abundance. Albany contained sixty dwelling-houses. His presence and power were greatly missed in Albany, and though he may have been slightly autocratic, he was popular.
Captain Grey devoted still more attention to the study of the aboriginal race while at Albany, and began the preparation of a valuable work dealing with them and his explorations, which was published two or three years later. In 1840, he was married to a daughter of the late Sir Richard Spencer. Albany continued to progress, and received still more important stimulus from the whaling industry. Early in 1839 John Hassell, sen., landed in Albany, while in command of the ship Dawson. He eventually settled there, and purchased 20,000 acres of land, which he stocked with sheep and cattle, procured in the eastern colonies. In pastoral affairs he took the place vacated by Sir Richard Spencer.
The Beagle returned to Western Australian waters in 1840. During the interim since her leaving Swan River, in 1838, she had made surveys in Bass Strait, and on the north coast of Australia; had visited the islands in the north, and returned again to the north coast. There the officers discovered the Adelaide and Victoria Rivers, and after they carefully explored them they sailed for Swan River on 12th December, 1839, and reached Fremantle on 31st January 1840.
While at Point Pearce, in the neighbourhood of the Victoria River, Stokes (who had been gazetted a captain) was speared by a native. With others, he had gone on shore to take observations, fixing the instruments beneath a high cliff, upon whose summit was a cluster of silvery-stemmed gum trees. He preceded his followers, and had just turned his head to look for them, when a spear violently quivered in his shoulder. At the same time a loud, long, savage yell rose from the edge of the precipice, so lately the abode of silence and solitude, and glancing up, Stokes observed numerous dusky forms of natives testifying in exuberant action their delight at spearing the white man. He drew out the spear, which had entered the cavity of the chest, and, though bleeding profusely, hurried off. The blacks descended the cliffs, and, with ferocious yells, started in pursuit. Most providentially, Stokes was rescued by an armed party from the ship. He suffered severely for some weeks, and it was many months before he was quite recovered from the wound.
In March the officers of the Beagle completed a chart of Rottnest Island, and selected a hill for the site of a lighthouse. On 4th April, after the expedition was able, through the improved state of the colony, to obtain supplies at Fremantle, the Beagle returned to the north-west, particularly bent on examining the Abrolhos coral group, Two days later the long line of white breakers rolling in on the Abrolhos Islands was observed, and Captain Stokes was able to distinguish from their foaming turbulence the limit of danger. He anchored near one of the islands, and a boat was hauled over a low, sandy neck, and entered a lagoon. A few remarkable clumps of mangroves pointed out the position of some lagoons near the south end of the island. A line of low, overhanging cliffs rose near here, upon which rested a layer of soil, in places eighteen inches deep, in others four feet, which Captain Stokes believed to contain the much sought after guano. In different parts of the island he saw similar signs of the presence of this fertiliser, and suggested that those parts were worth exploiting for it. This description led Mr. C. E. Broadhurst many years afterwards to test the soil, which resulted in a remunerative industry being initiated.
On closer examination of the island, Stokes discovered the beams of the wrecked Batavia (Captain Pelsart), and he named his anchorage Batavia Road, and the whole southern group of islands Pelsart Group. He now went over to the main near Moresby's Flat-topped Range, and anchored in a bay which he named Champion Bay, after the colonial schooner; the projection sheltering it from the south-west he designated Point Moore, in compliment to Mr. G. F. Moore.
Some time previously, in January, 1840, an expedition, under the Advocate-General, Mr G. F. Moore, had proceeded to this part of the coast in the colonial schooner Champion. The special object to be attained was to more thoroughly explore a bay, which Grey named Port Grey, and the contiguous country, which the same explorer had characterised as suitable for an extensive settlement. Moore landed near Moresby's Flat-topped Range, made inland incursions, and reported favourably on its potentialities. It was also said that the harbour was protected by a reef running north and south from the extreme point of the bay. The part he examined was evidently Champion Bay.
Stokes made a plan of the bay, and took the elevation of two neighbouring heights—Mount Fairfax (585 feet) and Wizard Peak (700 feet). Then he again returned to the Abrolhos, and named the Easter Group and Good Friday Harbour, from the time of year of his visit. Next he conferred names on Rat Island (from the quantity of vermin infesting it), Snapper Bank, Gun Island (from a gun, besides other relics discovered from the Zeewyk, wrecked in 1727), Zeewyk Passage, Middle Passage, East Wallaby Island, Pigeon Islands, Recruit Harbour (from its affording supplies of small kangaroo and fish), West Wallaby Island, Flag Hill, North Island, Record Hill, and Slaughter Point. At the last-named point Stokes shot thirty-six of a species of wallaby in four hours, averaging in weight about seven pounds each.
After a comprehensive examination of the Abrolhos Group of Islands, the Beagle sailed further north, and began a careful survey of the coast east of Depuch Island, where Captain King had not been. In Depuch Island were found numerous drawings, some possessed of merit. Stokes wrote that possibly the native artists expended as much patience and labour on their works of art as Raphael and Michael Angelo, and perhaps received as much applause from their fellow countrymen, and opined that because of their simple efforts to emerge from the circle of mere animal wants, there was hope that civilisation would yet have an efficacious influence over them. He continues:—"These savages of Australia, as we call them, who have adorned the rocks of Depuch Islands with their drawings,
