The river itself, however, is only about 400 yards wide at the mouth, which was closed all but a very narrow channel to the South under Arthur's Head, by a reef, until a similar channel was opened under Rous' Head to the North. As these are seldom accessible to vessels drawing more than 6 feet, and as the rise of the tide does not commonly exceed 18 inches, the trade of the port at Fremantle has at present to be carried on by means of lighters, which either discharge their cargoes from vessels in the roads, at the jetty, or take them up the river to Perth and Guildford. Outward-bound vessels have to he loaded in the same manner. For the first two miles the river is narrow, and for the most part shallow, ledges of rock projecting into it from the shores on which sandbanks have been formed; but beyond it opens into a series of broad lake-like reaches for some 11 miles to the narrows above Perth, which should perhaps be considered, more properly, the real mouth of the river. Perth water is nearly land-locked and shallow, but from thence to Rocky Bay there are some 8 square miles of water, a large portion of which is deep carrying a channel of six fathoms, affording access to a coastline of 25 miles. The country about these waters has an undulating surface of limestone, the greatest elevations of which do not much exceed 250 feet. It has been, for the most part, covered with large timber trees, of which, however, but few remain. Perth water forms a pretty lake, on the West of which Mt. Eliza rises about 180 feet in a steep escarpment; it is about one mile and a half in length, and a mile in breadth. Perth, the capital of the Colony, is built on its North bank. Below Perth water the Canning, a small river rising in the face of the Darling Range, has its outlet in Melville water. It is navigable for boats and barges for some 12 miles, to the mills of Messrs. Mason & Bird, and affords
