one passage in his diary (which I once saw for an hour) where he expresses himself thus:  “Another year has gone by, and with it all signs of the promised vessel.  Oh!  God, even hope seems to have deserted me.”  At length a vessel from Sydney arrived, bringing a large supply of stores of every kind for the mission, but it was too late, for Father Anjello and his sorrows were alike resting in the tomb.  One day news came that he was ill; a boat was sent immediately for him, and found him dying.  He was removed to the settlement and next day he breathed his last—­another, but not the last victim to the climate.  His death-bed was described to me as having been a fearful scene.  He exhibited the greatest horror of death, and in his last extremity blasphemously denied that there was a God!

(Footnote.  I regret that the arrangements for this work will not admit of my publishing in the Appendix a Port Essington vocabulary, consisting of about 650 words, in four dialects, formed in 1844, and corrected and improved in 1848; the manuscripts will be deposited in the library of the British Museum.)

In concluding the subject of the Aborigines, I may add that at present the natives of Port Essington have little to thank the white man for.  The advantage of being provided with regular food and other comforts enjoyed by such as are in service are merely temporary, and, like the means of gratifying two new habits—­the use of tobacco and spirits—­to which they have become passionately addicted, will cease when the settlement is abandoned.  The last importation of the whites was syphilis, and by it they will probably be remembered for years to come.

STATION AT CORAL BAY.

During our stay at Port Essington, I made an excursion in the decked boat of the settlement (which Captain Macarthur kindly allowed me the use of) to Coral Bay, a station for invalids very pleasantly situated on the western side of the harbour, twelve miles from Victoria.  We found there my old friend Mr. Tilston,* the assistant-surgeon, with some convalescents under his charge.  This is a much cooler and pleasanter locality than the neighbourhood of the settlement, still the heat was at times very great.  I had here pointed out to me a kind of tea-tree, or Melaleuca, which had a short time before been recognised by a Malay as that producing the valuable cajeput oil, and on trial, the oil procured from the leaves by distillation, was found to be scarcely inferior in pungency to that of the Melaleuca cajeputi of the Moluccas.  Here, too, we saw some of the playhouses of the greater bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis) and had the pleasure of witnessing the male bird playing his strange antics as he flew up to the spot and alighted with a dead shell in his mouth, laid it down, ran through the bower, returned, picked up the shell, and rearranged the heap among which it was placed, flew off again and soon returned with another—­and so on.

SAIL FROM PORT ESSINGTON.