the south of Cape Bernouilli, have more particularly drawn the attention of the local Government, rendered necessary in consequence of the rapid settlement of the back country.  Recent surveys have enhanced the value of these two bays, and townships have been laid out at each.  That at Rivoli bay being called Grey Town, that of Guichen bay Robe Town.  At the latter, there is a resident magistrate and a party of mounted police.  Many allotments have been sold in both towns, and although the bays offer but little protection to large vessels, they are of great importance to the colonial trade and to the settlers occupying the beautiful and fertile country in the neighbourhood of Mounts Gambier and Shanck.  From Cape Morard des Galles, a low dreary and sandy beach extends for five leagues beyond the sea mouth of the Murray, a distance of more than 100 miles.  This beach, which varies in breadth from one to three miles, conceals the waters of the Coorong, and the depressed and barren country beyond it is completely hid from view by the bright sand-hills on this long and narrow strip of land.

The sea mouth of the Murray, famous for the tragical events that have occurred near it, and which give a melancholy interest to the spot, is in long. 138 degrees 56 minutes and in lat. 35 degrees 32 minutes.  No one could, I am sure, look on the foaming waters of that wild line of sand-hills through which it has forced a channel, without deep feelings of awe and emotion.  Directly open to the Southern Ocean, the swell that rolls into Encounter Bay, is of the heaviest description.  The breakers rise to the height of fifteen or eighteen feet before they burst in one unbroken line as far as the eye can see, and as the southerly is the most prevailing wind on that part of the Australian coast, it is only during the summer season, and after several days of northerly wind that the sea subsides, and the roar of breakers ceases for a time.  The reader will perhaps bear in mind that the channel of the Goolwa connects Lake Victoria with Encounter Bay, the sea mouth of the Murray being the outlet through which its waters are discharged into the ocean.

The channel of the Goolwa (now called Port Pullen, in compliment to an officer of that name on the marine survey staff of the province, who succeeded, after several disappointments, in taking a small cutter through that narrow passage, and navigating her across the lake into the Murray River, as high as the settlement of Moorundi) is to the westward of the sea mouth as the Coorong is to the eastward. [Note 12. below]

[Note 12.  The compliment thus paid to Mr. Pullen, who is now employed on the expedition to the North Pole, in search of Sir John Franklin, by Col.  Gawler, the then Governor, was well merited, as a reward for the perseverance and patience he had shewn on the occasion—­for those only who have been at the spot can form an idea of the disturbed and doubtful character of the place, and the risk there must have been in the attempt to enter such a passage for the first time.]