Timely discovery of the rest by Mr. Roe.  Mr. Roe’s report.

Four days after the rest were picked up by Mr. Roe’s party, whose proceedings I shall now relate from his own interesting report; premising that the men had then been three days without water and four days without food, and had nothing to eat but the sweet cane that grows near the beach.

Mr. Roe proceeds in search of the missing men.

Mr. Roe says: 

Leaving Perth early on the 8th instant, accompanied by Mr. E. Spofforth and four men, with the native youths Warrup and Wyip, and five horses, we travelled in a north by west direction along a chain of beautiful lakes, from three to ten miles apart, and surrounded by good soil and grass to a short distance; and in the middle of the third day reached Neergabby on the Garban River, about 52 miles distant.  Giving our horses an hour’s rest, I rode forward twelve miles with Mr. Spofforth and Warrup to the mouth of the river, where we hoped to find some traces of the absentees; but to our disappointment and regret not a footmark was to be seen on the sand except those of Woods, and the written directions which had been placed conspicuously on sticks so as to intercept the track of the wanderers were either untouched or washed down by the high tides.  Replacing these with full instructions how to proceed, we returned to our camp at Neergabby, where we were joined by some natives of the district, from whom however no information whatever could be obtained respecting the objects of our search.  Inferring from these circumstances that they could not yet have reached so far south, and that they might probably have quitted the beach for the purpose of seeking fresh water inland, we lost no time in pushing on to the northward, and at sunset of the 11th took up our bivouac at Barrumbur on the Moore River, seventeen miles in advance, where excellent water was found in deep pools and our horses revelled in luxuriant pasturage.  Between the two rivers there is a great extent of level country, so much under water in wet weather as to be then totally impassable with horses or carts, and the beds of the rivers (near which there is generally good cattle feed) assume the form of deep sandy pools, a few yards apart and grooved to the depth of 25 or 30 feet below the level of the banks.

Being desirous of penetrating the country further to the north before we again visited the beach, which was computed to be about fifteen miles distant with no water or feed for our horses in the intermediate space, we buried half our provisions, etc., in a hole beneath our temporary shelter, which was then fired in order to lull the suspicion of the natives; and our sable companions having secreted the pannier-baskets and packsaddles among the adjoining bushes in such a way as to defy discovery, we trusted to Providence