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So, too, is Seagriff, who, an inveterate smoker, is never without igniting apparatus, carried in a pocket of his pilot-coat. But where are they to find firewood? There is none on the islet not a stick, as no trees grow there; while the tussac and other plants are soaking wet, the very ground being a sodden spongy peat.
But farther up it is drier and firmer, the lofty tussac giving place to grass of humbler stature; in fact, a sward so short, that the ground appears as though freshly mown. Here the climbers catch sight of a number of moving creatures, which they might easily mistake for quadrupeds. Hundreds of them are running to and fro like rabbits in a warren, and quite as fast.
Passing Berkley Sound with a stiff breeze, which rushed out of it, we stood on for Mount Low, and then beat up Port William, which has a line of sand hills on one side of it, and Stanley Harbour at the end. Although the day was fine, the appearance of the country was not very attractive; for there are no trees rocks, and sand hills, and tussac grass, and barren heights, being the chief features.
The surrounding country consisting of slight elevations, either rocky or covered with tussac grass, is not attractive. I could not help looking at the place with great interest, as the first infant British settlement I had seen; and I thought less of what it then was than of what it might become, under good management. The last idea was suggested to me, I must own, by Mr Brand.
In winter the cold is never severe, and only at intervals of several years does snow fall to any depth, so as to risk the destruction of cattle. The most remarkable production is the tussac, a gigantic species of grass, which grows to the height of ten feet, and is capable of sheltering and concealing herds of cattle and horses.
However, they had not been very anxious about us till they saw the conflagration burst out, and guessed that we were by some means the cause of it. They were on their way to look for us, but the flames, like some mighty torrent, rushed towards them. They had with frantic haste to dart through the clumps of tussac and penguin grass to reach the beach.
Clumps of Australian cedars rose on the sloping banks, which were also covered with the high grass called "tussac" in New Holland; but the cocoanut, so abundant in the archipelagoes of the Pacific, seemed to be wanting in the island, the latitude, doubtless, being too low. "What a pity!" said Herbert, "such a useful tree, and which has such beautiful nuts!"
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