this on two grounds: that it would be cruel to place them in the way of the barbarous tribes there, who would certainly destroy many of them, and that such a wretched, sandy, barren country would not furnish them with sufficient food. A writer in the Gazette of that year takes a canine view of the question: "They cannot, he says, "continue in their present state. The daily extension of the inhabited districts, and the vast increase of their dogs, must besides conspire to shorten their present means of subsistence, and to render their repeated attacks of aggression on the Whites still more probable." He suggests that the Government shall take advantage of the season when they go to the east coast for swans' eggs, seize them, conduct them to the capital, and carry them thence to King's Island.
King's Island, lying half-way between the Cape Otway of Victoria, and the north-west corner of Tasmania, is thirty miles in length and from twelve to fifteen in breadth. The first regular survey of it was made in 1827, when Mr. Barnard recommended it as a site for the punishment of reconvicted felons, as there was little chance of their escape, and no inducement to take to the Bush there, because of the extreme sterility of the soil, and the utter impenetrability of the country. He pronounced it certain death to attempt to cross the island without a compass, and reported that "none of the sealers could ever accomplish it, even aided by black women as guides." On the east coast a small stream enters Sea Elephant Bay; so called from the number of those gigantic seals found there. But a tremendous surf beats against a basaltic barrier outside, in one part of the island, or rolls against a low and harbourless shore in the other.
That King's Island was not improperly called the "dread of seamen," will appear from the account of several fearful shipwrecks. The convict ship Neva went ashore there, and out of three hundred female prisoners but eight were saved In 1845 the Cataraqui was lost on the south-west coast of the island, and only nine of four hundred and twenty-three persons survived. On nearing the island the captain had slackened sail, and exhibited due caution. The surgeon superintendent of the vessel ridiculed the prudence, and openly jeered at the skipper's want of courage. Stung with the remark, the thundering order came forth, "Shake out the reefs, and stand on." On flew the ship, and, in the darkness of midnight, struck upon the rocks.
