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Contiguous to the best part, was a large fresh water swamp, overgrown
with reeds and bulrushes.
In the evening of the 21st they entered the mouth of the Derwent.
In passing between two islands, the heads of the seaweed, which, from its
size, is named the Gigantic, were showing themselves above the surface in
six or eight fathoms water: a diminutive plant when compared with those
of the kind seen in higher latitudes, but of vast magnitude in comparison
with the generality of seaweeds.
On their various movements in the Derwent, Mr. Bass is silent, confining
his narrative to a general account of what he learned and saw of the
neighbouring country.
If the Derwent river have any claim to respectability, it is indebted for
it more to the paucity of inlets into Van Diemen's land, than to any
intrinsic merits of its own. After a sleepy course of not more than
twenty-five or twenty-seven miles to the NW it falls into Frederick Henry
Bay. Its breadth there is two miles and a quarter, and its depth ten
fathoms.


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