Having Rested For A Time, And Enjoyed A Little Tea, We Inquired Of The Natives For Grass For Our Horses,

As there was none to be seen anywhere. They told us that there was none at all where we were,

But they would take us to some further along the coast, where we could also procure water, without difficulty, as the sand was firm and hard, and the water at no great depth. Guided by our new friends, we crossed the sand-hills to the beach, and following round the head of the Great Bight for five miles, we arrived at some more high drifts of white sand; turning in among these, they took us to a flat where some small holes were dug in the sand, which was hard and firm; none of them were two feet deep, and the water was excellent and abundant: the name of the place was Yeer-kumban-kauwe.

Whilst I was employed in digging a large square hole, to enable us to dip the bucket when watering the horses, the native boy went, accompanied by one of the natives as a guide, to look for grass. Upon his return, he said he had been taken to a small plain about a mile away, behind the sand hills, where there was plenty of grass, though of a dry character; to this we sent the horses for the night. In returning, a few sea fowl were shot as a present for our friends, with whom we encamped, gratified that we had at last surmounted the difficulty of rounding the Great Bight, and that once more we had a point where grass and water could be procured, and from which we might again make another push still further to the westward.

In the evening, we made many inquiries of the natives, as to the nature of the country inland, the existence of timber, rocks, water, etc. and though we were far from being able to understand all that they said, or to acquire half the information that they wished to convey to us, we still comprehended them sufficiently to gather many useful and important particulars. In the interior, they assured us, most positively, there was no water, either fresh or salt, nor anything like a sea or lake of any description.

They did not misunderstand us, nor did we misapprehend them upon this point, for to our repeated inquiries for salt water, they invariably pointed to a salt lake, some distance behind the sand-hills, as the only one they knew of, and which at this time we had not seen.

With respect to hills or timber, they said, that neither existed inland, but that further along the coast to the westward, we should find trees of a larger growth, and among the branches of which lived a large animal, which by their description, I readily recognized as being the Sloth of New South Wales; an animal whose habits exactly agreed with their description, and which I knew to be an inhabitant of a barren country, where the scrub was of a larger growth than ordinary.

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