habits of the natives of this part of Australia, and the south-western portions of the continent; for these superior huts, well marked roads, deeply sunk wells. and extensive warran grounds, all spoke of a large and comparatively speaking resident population, and the cause of this undoubtedly must have been, the great facilities for procuring food in so rich a soil.

We now came to two very remarkable hills, bearing N. E. of us, and distant about three miles, which I have named Mount Victoria and Mount Albert, they lay about one mile apart, and were of this form, which will give a good idea of the flat topped hills hereabouts.

The river still ran in a deep wooded valley, bordered by rich flats, high hills lying both to the right and left of our line of route.--Two miles and a half more on a course of 135°, brought us out on some gravelly barren plains, and just before coming to these, and in passing through a scrub, we raised a flight of white cockatoos, of a species new to me.-One of the men got an ineffectual shot at them. After traversing these plains for two miles in a s. E. direction, we came upon a valley, through which flowed a branch of the river we had this day discovered, running in a bed of fifty yards across, and having in its centre a rapid stream, falling in small cascades; it appeared at times subject to extensive inundations, and here

its course was through barren plains, covered with rocks, piled up in strange fantastic masses, and the bed was composed of that kind of red sandstone, which at Perth is called ironstone; this being the farthest point north, at which I have remarked it.

A number of Grass trees (Xanthorrhea) grew near the spot where we had halted; they appeared unhealthy and stunted, but indeed I suspect they are a new and undescribed variety. Being desirous of procuring any thing I could for the men to eat, I had the tops of some of these trees cut off, and boiled, they were however still so hard that to chew them was impossible, and it was evident that we had not yet reached a parallel of latitude, calculated to produce tender-topped grass trees.

I knew our latitude and position this night exactly, as I had seen Mount Naturaliste of the French in the course of the day.-There could be no doubt whatever, that we were in a very remarkable district, for we stood upon the point where the geological formations of the north-western and southwestern portions of the continent were associated together, and the flora of which was so made up of those of both, that it was impossible to tell which predominated. There were many other interesting circumstances connected with the surrounding country, some of which have been already mentioned. I named the river and estuary now discovered, the Hutt, after William Hutt, Esq., M.P., brother of His Excellency, the Governor of Western Australia. Mr. Smith this

day complained of weakness, not sufficiently, however, in the least to alarm me-he had hitherto been nearly always in the rear of the party without lagging, but I thought two of the men in a much weaker state than he was.

CHAPTER II.

FROM THE HUTT RIVER TO WATER PEAK.

WILD TURKEYS SEEN-DIFFICULTY OF URGING THE PARTY FORWARD-THE BOWES RIVER-NATIVE HUTS-THE VIC

TORIA RANGE AND DISTRICT-THE BULLER RIVER-THE CHAPMAN RIVER-SEARCH FOR A MISSING MAN-SCENE WITH NATIVES-RETURN OF PARTY FROM SEARCH-THE MAN FOUND-THE GREENOUGH RIVER-CROSS THE HEADS OF TWO BAYS-MORE

NATIVE HUTS-AUSTRALIND-THE IRWIN RIVER-SEARCH FOR WATER-WATER PEAK HILLBENIGHTED IN RETURNING TO THE PARTY.

April 6.-WE moved off this morning on a course of 180°. The first mile of our journey was over low scrubby ironstone hills. We then came down upon rich flats, through which the main branch of the Hutt ran; and followed the course of this branch for about two miles. It was not running, but there were many pools with water in its bed the flats were rich and grassy, and on the hills to the westward (the Menai hills) we descried wild turkeys, being the farthest point north at which I had seen this bird.

As I saw that the ground in front of us was very steep and abrupt, so that the weak and weary would have found it a difficult task to master such

an ascent, I turned off on a course of 168°, ascending a sandy table-land, covered with scrub. When we had walked three miles in this direction, the table-hill of Captain King bore E. by s. distant five miles. We now proceeded parallel to the sea, which was distant one mile, through an indifferent country. This course continued for about five miles, and on the ranges to the eastward the country still appeared to be grassy and good. Although we had walked very slowly, many of the party were completely exhausted, and one or two of the discontented ones pretended to be dreadfully in want of water, notwithstanding they carried canteens, and had only walked eight miles since leaving the bank of a river; I was therefore obliged to halt, and could not get them to move for three hours. I am sorry to say that some who should have known much better endeavoured to instil into the minds of the men, that it was preferable only to walk a few miles a day, and not to waste their strength by long marches; utterly forgetting that most of the party had now only seven or eight pounds of fermented flour left, and that if they did not make play whilst they had strength, their eventually reaching Perth was quite hopeless. This, however, was a very popular doctrine for thoughtless and weary men, who were overloaded, and yet from a feeling of avarice would not abandon any portion of what they were carrying. The majority of the party not only adopted these views in theory, but doggedly carried them into practice; and from this