Mount Victoria and Mount Albert.

We now came to two very remarkable hills bearing north-east 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 the form shown in Illustration 2, which will give a good idea of the flat-topped hills hereabouts.

The Hutt river.

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 degrees 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.

First hills of the southern ironstone formation.

After traversing these plains for two miles in a south-east 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 (Xanthorrhoea) 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 anything 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 south-western 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, Esquire, M.P., brother of His Excellency the Governor of Western Australia.

Indisposition of Mr. Smith.

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.