This is one of the ten paintings by Westall of Matthew Flinders' Australian voyage (1801-03) that the Admiralty commissioned from 1809 (ZBA7914, 7935-7936, 7938-7944): they were completed over the next three years.

It looks down from high ground towards what appear to be two bays divided by an isthmus, but may be one large inlet connected between the distant hills shown. Flinders' 'Investigator' spent four weeks surveying around King George's Sound but even from his written account it is hard to work out the topography shown here, though the bay may be the one Flinders called Princess Royal Harbour. In the foreground, under a palm and another tree, two Aboriginal figures are tending a fire. The woman on the left has beads round her neck and is swathed in a blanket; the man on the right has feathers in his hair and is naked. There is no reason to suppose the figures are portraits of specific people. The area was that of the Noongar people.

The image was engraved as one of the nine plates in Flinders ‘A Voyage to Terra Australis' (1814, and also separately published that year in Westall's 'Views of Australian Scenery') in which it is the first in Flinders, vol. 1, captioned 'View from the South side of King George’s Sound'. Related text of 23-24 December 1801 is unspecific, though does cover encounter with local people while Flinders was ashore and summarise the nature of the place: 'The country through which we passed in this excursion has but little to recommend it. The stony hills of the sea coast were, indeed, generally covered with shrubs; but there was rarely any depth of vegetable soil, and no wood.’ For other notes on the group see ZBA7914. [PvdM 1/18, updated 9/18]