Here I saw for the first time a species of Sciadophyllum, one of the most singular trees of the eastern coastline of tropical Australia; a slender stem, about thirty feet in height, gives off a few branches with immense digitate dark and glossy leaves and long spike-like racemes of small scarlet flowers, a great resort for insects and insect-feeding birds.
COMMUNICATION WITH NATIVES STOPPED.
Soon after the ship had come to an anchor, some natives came off in their canoes and paid us a visit, bringing with them a quantity of shellfish (Sanguinolaria rugosa) which they eagerly exchanged for biscuit.

For a few days afterwards we occasionally met them on the beach, but at length they disappeared altogether, in consequence of having been fired at with shot by one of two of the young gentlemen of the Bramble, on a shooting excursion, whom they wished to prevent from approaching too closely a small village, where they had their wives and children.

Immediate steps were taken, in consequence, to prevent the recurrence of such collisions, when thoughtless curiosity on one side is apt to be promptly resented on the other, if numerically superior in force.

I saw nothing in the appearance of these natives to distinguish them from those of Goold Island, and the canoes are the same.

The men had large prominent cicatrices on the shoulders, and across the breast and belly, the septum of the nose was perforated, and none of the teeth had been removed.