who shipped a spear, making a demonstration of throwing it at us, they evinced a desire for the more peaceable amusement of eating damper and fat bacon.  A few of the natives spoke a little English, having been for a short time in the settled districts.  At sunset they retired to the other side of the river, and all appeared quiet when my watch commenced at 10.30; but at midnight I detected a native crawling up amongst the thick grass about ten yards from the back of the tents.  He lay quiet till I almost turned him out of his hiding-place with the muzzle of my gun, when he took to his heels, but I did not consider it prudent either to fire at or capture him.

2nd November.

The natives being too numerous to allow any of the party leaving the camp to examine the country around without incurring greater risk than seemed prudent, we left our bivouac at 7.45 a.m. and steered north 170 degrees east magnetic over sandy hills, covered with short scrub.  After two hours the country became nearly level, with small patches of swampy ground, which would be very wet in the rainy season, but was at present quite dry; the rising grounds were sand, covered with short scrub with a few scattered banksia trees.  At 5.40 p.m. struck the left bank of the stream which has been considered to be the Arrowsmith River of Captain Grey, though I have now some reason to doubt its identity.  The banks of the stream are sandstone and sand, and the channel scarcely three yards wide, with a strip of grassy thicket twenty yards in width along the stream, which is the only feed near the river, as the plain through which it runs produces nothing but scrub and banksia with a few grass-trees.  We bivouacked a short distance below the spot where we first struck the stream, which was still running.

3rd November.

Our horses having but a very scanty feed at this place, we moved down the stream to obtain better grass for them before crossing the sand-plains which lay to the south.  After following the stream west for two hours, encamped in a small grassy flat, below which the stream ceased to run, the water being wholly absorbed by the sandy soil, which has a substratum of limestone of recent formation.

Seventy miles of sand plain.

4th November.

Accompanied by Mr. Bedart, rode to the westward; passing over sandy plains and ridges for four hours, came to the beach, which we followed northwards for three hours, hoping to meet with the mouth of the stream on which our camp was placed.  Not perceiving any signs of it, we turned to the east, and after an hour’s struggle through a thick jungle, we came on a wet grassy flat, on which the stream seemed to be lost.  Steering a general course of south-south-east, we arrived at 9.10 p.m. at the camp, after a ride of thirteen and a quarter hours, and the country traversed almost wholly worthless sand and scrub.

5th November (Sunday).