We Had Only Made Good A Distance Of Eleven Miles From Our Last Camp, And I Felt Anxious To Get On To Lucky Bay As Quickly As I Could, In Order That I Might Again Give Our Horses A Rest For A Few Days, Which They Now Began To Require.

From Captain Flinders' account of Lucky Bay I knew we should find fresh water and wood in abundance.

I hoped there would also be grass, and in this case I had made up my mind to remain a week or ten days, during which I intended to have killed the foal we had with us, now about nine months old, could we procure food in no other way. After leaving Lucky Bay, as we should only be about three hundred miles from the Sound, and our horses would be in comparatively fresh condition, I anticipated we should be able to progress more rapidly. Indeed I fully expected it would be absolutely necessary for us to do so, through a region which, from Flinders' description as seen from sea, and from his having named three different hills in it Mount Barrens, we should find neither very practicable nor fertile.

Six miles beyond the fresh-water lake we came to another salt-water stream, and finding, upon following up a little way, that it was only brackish, we crossed and halted for the night. Wylie went out to search for food, but got nothing, whilst I unharnessed and attended to the horses, which were a good deal fagged, and then prepared the camp and made the fires for the night: I could get nothing but grass-tree for this purpose, but it was both abundant and dry. Owing to its very resinous nature, this tree burns with great heat and brilliancy, emitting a grateful aromatic odour. It is easily lit up, makes a most cheerful fire, and notwithstanding the fervency with which it burns, does not often require renewing, if the tree be large. Our whole journey to-day had been over undulations of about three hundred feet in elevation; the country rose a little inland, and a few occasional bluffs of granite were observed in the distance, but no timber was seen any where. At night the flies and mosquitoes were very troublesome to us.

May 31. - The morning showery, and bitterly cold, so that, for the first two hours after starting, we suffered considerably, After travelling for seven miles and a half, through an undulating and bare country, we came to a salt-water river, with some patches of good land about it. Having crossed the river a little way up where it became narrower, we again proceeded for five miles farther, through the same character of country, and were then stopped by another salt stream, which gave us a great deal of trouble to effect a crossing. We had traced it up to where the channel was narrow, but the bed was very deep, and the water running strongly between banks of rich black soil.

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