being almost torn to pieces, and the horses quite worn out with continual exertions in dragging their packs through the thickets, we were compelled to return to the well passed yesterday morning.  The country seen to the northwards was of too flat and sandy a character to give any hope of finding water or grass—­and without these requisites, it would be incurring great risk of losing the horses, and of course defeating the object of the expedition; therefore, taking advantage of the partially cleared tracts of yesterday, we reached the watering place at 4.30 p.m.

28th September.

This day we employed ourselves in repairing our pack-saddles, which it was found necessary to restuff, as they had been padded with coarse rushes; the saddle-bags had been torn to pieces, and the repairs of these required more time than could be afforded in an evening’s bivouac.

29th September.

Started at 8.35 a.m.; pursued a general course of 310 degrees, gradually ascending the sandy downs on the north side of the valley for three miles; it then turned to the north of west, and we again descended, and found the bottom occupied by a narrow samphire flat, 50 to 100 yards wide, over which the water runs during heavy rains, but it was now dry, and in some parts covered with a thin crust of salt; 11.26 passed a native well of slightly brackish water, amongst loose blocks of red sandstone; a small well was passed at 11.50; the samphire flat then changed to a small sandy channel, among large blocks of sandstone belonging to the coal-formation:  in one place the slate also cropped out.  Abundance of brackish water lay in small pools along the course of the stream-bed, which at 1.0 p.m. changed its direction nearly west; we followed it through a scrubby valley, with high hills on both sides, till 4.45, when we bivouacked just below the junction of a small gully from the northwards, with a very remarkable sandstone hill about three-quarters of a mile south; below this spot the valley trended to the south-west, and was bounded on the north-west by flat-tapped sandstone hills.

30th September.

Not being more than ten to fifteen miles from the sea, I steered north 330 degrees east magnetic.  Starting at 8.5, and having ascended the high land, passed through a thick line of wattles and dwarf gum, growing on the eastern face of the limestone range, which forms the high barren range along this part of the coast.  The country was covered with thick scrub, and some patches of gum and wattle thicket; about noon it was more open, and ascending an elevated sandy ridge, saw apparently a high range of hills extending north-north-west as far as Shark Bay, and terminated by a very abrupt and detached hill; but the excessive refraction caused by the heated and nearly level plain which intervened more than doubled their real height.  We descended gradually over a succession of sandy hills or ridges till 2.0 p.m., when the lowest part of the plain was reached; we