The man found.

For the next two and a half miles we wound along low, grassy, swampy plains, thinly wooded with clumps of Acacias, and then entered upon low scrubby plains bounding the sea-shore.  I here caught sight of Stiles just ahead of us and coming in from the eastward:  he was very glad once more to find himself in safety; and his comrades seemed pleased to see him again, although many a suppressed murmur had met my ears during our morning’s walk at the trouble I was taking to look for him.

The Greenough river.

Four miles further over similar plains in a south by east direction brought us to a river, about five-and-twenty yards wide, which I named the Greenough; and travelling up it a short distance we found a spot where we could cross by stepping from rock to rock.  Its waters were quite salt.  I continued our route for about three miles, when I found it was impossible to induce some of the men to walk any further; they laid sullenly down and were so fully convinced that I was pursuing a wrong system in marching so far in a day, and never halting for two or three days to refresh, as they wished, that I could do nothing with them, and was therefore forced to sit down too.  Corporal Auger soon afterwards found water near us, and I moved the party down to it.

Finding water in some degree revived their spirits and I contrived to get them to proceed seven miles more before nightfall, the way being over sandy open plains very favourable for walking.

More native huts.

We passed a large assemblage of native huts of the same permanent character as those I have before mentioned:  there were two groups of those houses close together in a sequestered nook in a wood, which taken collectively would have contained at least a hundred and fifty natives.  We halted for the night in the dry bed of a watercourse, abounding in grass, so that we again enjoyed the luxury of a soft bed.  At first I thought that we were near natives from hearing a plaintive cry like that of a child, but Kaiber assured me that it was the cry of the young of the wild turkey.

Cross the heads of two bays.

In the course of this day we travelled across the heads of two bays, which were indistinctly visible through the woods.

Fertile valley.

April 9.

The first three miles of our route this day lay over sandy scrubby plains; we saw however a good country to the eastward.  I found that a man of the name of Charley Woods was much knocked up; he was a supporter of the eight or nine miles a day system, and had a very heavy load with no portion of which could I induce him to part; he however insisted on sitting down every half mile and detaining the party, and as I found that they got more worn out and weaker, and the impression in favour of long rests and short marches became much stronger, I thought it more prudent to acquiesce for the present.