“For the last twenty-four days I have been engaged in attempting to round the head of the Bight; but so difficult is the country, that I have not as yet been able to accomplish it.  In my first essay I was driven back by the want of water and obliged to abandon one of my horses.  This animal I subsequently recovered.

“In my second attempt, I went, accompanied by one of my native boys, and a man driving a dray loaded solely with water and our provisions; but such was the dreadful nature of the country, that after penetrating to within twelve miles of the head of the Bight, I was again obliged to abandon three of our horses, a dray, and our provisions.  The poor horses were so exhausted by previous fatigue and privation, that they could not return, and I was most reluctantly obliged to leave them to obtain relief for ourselves, and the two remaining horses we had with us.  After reaching the nearest water, we made every effort to save the unfortunate animals we had left behind; and for seven days, myself, the man, and a boy, were incessantly and laboriously engaged almost day and night in carrying water backwards and forwards to them—­feeding them with bread, gruel, etc.  I regret to say that all our efforts were in vain, and that the expedition has sustained a fatal and irreparable injury in the loss of three of its best draught horses.  The dray and the provisions I subsequently recovered, and on the evening of the 15th December, I rejoined my party behind Point Fowler, to prepare despatches for the Waterwitch, since the weak and unserviceable condition of nearly the whole of our remaining horses rendered any further attempt to penetrate so inhospitable a region quite impracticable for the present.  In traversing the country along the coast from Streaky Bay to the limits of our present exploration, within twelve miles of the head of the Great Bight, we have found the country of a very uniform description—­low flat lands, or a succession of sandy ridges, densely covered with a brush of eucalyptus dumosa, salt water tea-tree, and other shrubs—­whilst here and there appear a few isolated patches of open grassy plains, scattered at intervals among the scrub.  The surface rock is invariably an oolitic limestone, mixed with an imperfect freestone, and in some places exhibits fossil banks, which bear evident marks of being of a very recent formation.

“The whole of this extent of country is totally destitute of surface water—­we have never met with a watercourse, or pool of any description, and all the water we have obtained since we left Streaky Bay has been by digging, generally in the large drifts of pure white sand close to the coast.  This is a work frequently of much time and labour, as from the depth we have had to sink, and the looseness of the sand, the hole has often filled nearly as fast as we could clear it out; the water too thus obtained has almost always been brackish, occasionally salt.