[Illustration.  Rock Painting, North-Western Australia.]

The party continued along the Glenelg for many days, until indeed they were checked by a large tributary coming from the north.  As both the river and the tributary were here much swollen, they had to fall back on the range.  It was among the recesses of this range that Grey discovered some curious cave paintings of the blacks, in which the aboriginal figures were represented as clothed.

[Footnote.] A subsequent photograph of these paintings, by Brockman, is reproduced in Chapter 20.

Unable to find a pass through the mountains, and enfeebled by his wound, Grey determined to retrace his steps.  As a last resort he sent Lushington some distance ahead, but there was no noticeable change to report in the aspect of the country.  Hanover Bay was reached on the 15th of April.  The Lynher was waiting there at anchor, and H.M.S.  Beagle was lying in Port George the Fourth, awaiting the return of Captain Stokes, who was away exploring the coast.  The party having embarked, the Lynher sailed for the Isle of France, where they safely arrived.  Thus ended Captain Grey’s first expedition, which is interesting chiefly as a proof of the heroic qualities of its members; for the Glenelg River has never invited settlement, and has yet to prove that it possesses any considerable economic value.

During January, 1839, Grey explored the country between the Williams and the Leschenhault, while searching for a settler who had been lost in the bush.

On the 17th of February in the same year, Grey, who had been back endeavouring to persuade Sir James Stirling to assist him in his explorations, was enabled to start on another exploring enterprise.  The object of this, his second important expedition, was to examine the undiscovered parts of Shark’s Bay, and to make excursions as far inland as circumstances permitted.  The party comprised four of the members of his first expedition, five other men, and a Western Australian aboriginal, and they left Fremantle in an American whaler, taking three whale-boats with them.  They were duly landed at Bernier Island, where their troubles commenced at once.  The whaler sailed away, taking with her by mistake the whole of their supply of tobacco.  There was no water on the island, and, in their first attempt to start, one of the boats was smashed and nearly half a ton of stores lost.  The next day they succeeded in making Dorre Island, but that night both the remaining boats were driven ashore by a violent storm.  Two or three days were spent in making good the damage, when they succeeded in making the mainland, and obtained a supply of fresh water.  They had landed at or near the mouth of a stream which afterwards proved to be the second longest river in Western Australia.  Grey named it the Gascoyne, and found that it was then dry beyond the limit of tidal influence.  They then pulled up the coast, but one night, when effecting a landing, both boats