Many of the branches were bending under their loads of bats, some in a state of inactivity, suspended by their hind claws, others scrambling along among the boughs, and taking to wing when disturbed.

In a very short time I procured as many specimens as I wished, three or four at a shot, for they hung in clusters--but, unless killed outright, they remained suspended for some time--when wounded they are to be handled with difficulty, as they bite severely, and on such occasions their cry reminds one of the squalling of a child.

The flesh of these large bats is reported excellent; it is a favourite food with the natives, and more than once furnished a welcome meal to Leichhardt and his little party, during their adventurous journey to Port Essington.
One day we were surprised to see a small vessel approaching the anchorage from the southward.

She proved to be a cutter of twenty-five tons, called the Will-o-the-Wisp, fitted out by a merchant in Sydney, and sent in a somewhat mysterious way (so as to ensure secrecy) to search for sandalwood upon the north-east coast of Australia.

If found in sufficient quantity, a party was to be left to cut it, while the vessel returned to Moreton Bay with the news, and communicated with the owner, who was to send a larger vessel to pick it up and convey it at once to the China market.* An inferior kind of sandalwood, the produce of Exocarpus latifolia (but which afterwards turned out to be useless) was met with in several localities--as the Percy Isles, Repulse Bay, Cape Upstart, Palm Islands, etc.