Picturesque halting-place.

Our loads having been hoisted on our shoulders away we moved.  I had before chosen my line of route, and the plan I had resolved to adopt was to walk on slowly but continuously for an hour, and then to halt for ten minutes; during which interval of time the men could rest and relieve themselves from the weight of their burdens whilst I could enter what notes and bearings I had taken during the preceding hour.

We were embarrassed for the first portion of our journey this afternoon by a thick scrub, through which we could only make our way with great difficulty, but on coming to a watercourse running into the southern part of Gantheaume Bay from the south-east I turned up its bed, and we were then able to move along with tolerable facility.  This watercourse ran at the bottom of a red sandstone ravine resembling the old red sandstone of England; and the remainder of the evening was spent in clambering about the rocks and endeavouring to avoid such natural obstacles as impeded our route.  Our progress was slow, and just before nightfall I turned up a branch ravine trending to the southward, when we soon found ourselves at the foot of a lofty cascade down which a little water was slowly dropping; and on climbing to its summit it appeared to be so well adapted for a halting-place for the night that I determined to remain here.  The men made themselves comfortable near the waterholes, and Mr. Smith and myself crept into a little cave which occasionally served as a resting-place for the natives, the remains of whose fires were scattered about.  A wild woodland and rocky scenery was around us; and when the moon rose and shed her pale light over all I sat with Mr. Smith on the edge of the waterfall, gazing alternately into the dim woody abyss below, and at the red fires and picturesque groups of men, than which fancy could scarcely image a wilder scene.

Native path and well.

April 3.

Before the day had fully dawned we were under weigh.  Our course for the first mile or two was embarrassed by ravines and scrub similar to that we had yesterday met with; our progress was therefore very slow, but we at length emerged on elevated sandy downs, thickly clothed with banksia trees, and across these we came upon a well-beaten native path running to the south by east, which was exactly our line of route.  We had not followed this path for more than four miles when we found a most romantically-situated native well, surrounded by shrubs and graceful wattle trees, and of a depth and size such as we had never before observed.  Here then we seated ourselves, and upon such scanty fare as we had made a sparing breakfast.  This however but very insufficiently supplied our wants; and as we sat at this little well, thus surrounded with such fairy scenery, a variety of philosophic reflections crossed our minds and found vent in words.  Nothing