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COASTS OF AUSTRALIA.
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caution of burning the grass off round the tent, their advance was received with unconcern; they rapidity and fierceness, however, with which they approached, made me fear that the sparks might set fire to the tent, upon which the instruments were moved to the waters' edge, and the tent pulled down; but, had not the grass been previously cleared away, we could not have saved any article, from the rapidity with which the flames spread through that which had been left standing, and which was not more than ten yards from the tent.
Aug. 2.Three days after the visit from the natives, Mr. Bedwell and Mr. Hunter proceeded to examine among the mangroves, at the back of the harbour, for a communication with some fresh water ponds which we had discovered the day before; but they returned in the afternoon without success. They had penetrated up two or three openings in the mangroves; in one of which was found a canoe, similar to that described by the wood-cut at page 225: it was hollowed out of the trunk of the erythrina, and was furnished with an outrigger. A tulle-peg was found in it, which Mr. Hunter brought away; it measured seventeen inches in length, and was in other respects similar to that used by the natives of Rockingham Bay. (See the wood-cut at page 245.) On