Came to a valley with some wiry grass in it.
At this I halted, as there was no prospect of getting better grass, and
the water left by the rains was abundant. The latter, though it had only
fallen an hour or two, was in many places quite salt, and the best of it
brackish, so thoroughly saline was the nature of the soil upon which it
had been deposited.
As the afternoon proved fine, I traced down the valley we were upon to
its junction with a stream flowing over a granite bed, about a mile from
our camp. In this the pools of water were large, deep, and brackish, but
there was plenty of fresh water left by the rains in holes of the rocks
upon its banks. As, however, there did not appear to be better grass upon
the larger channel, than in the valley where we were, I did not think it
worth while to remove our camp.
June 26. - I determined to remain in camp today to rest the horses, and to
enable me to arrange their loads, so that Wylie and I might again ride
occasionally. We had both walked for the last eleven days, during which
we had made good a distance of 134 miles from Rossiter Bay, and as I
calculated we ought under ordinary circumstances to reach the Sound in
ten days more, I thought that we might occasionally indulge in riding,
and relieve ourselves from the great fatigue we had hitherto been subject
to, especially as the horses were daily improving in strength and
condition.
Whilst I was engaged in making the necessary preparations, and throwing
away some things which I thought we could dispense with, such as our
bucket, some harness, ammunition, cooking utensils, and sundry other
things, Wylie took the rifle, and went down to the watercourse to shoot.
On his return in the afternoon he produced four teal and a black swan, as
the produce of his day's sport; he had, however, shot away every charge
of shot from the belt, which had been filled on board the Mississippi,
and held three pounds and a half, besides three ball cartridges; how
often he fired at the swan before he got it I could never discover, but I
heard shot after shot as fast as he could load and fire for some time,
and he himself acknowledged to firing at it seven times, but I suspect it
to have been nearer twice seven.
To-day we were obliged to fetch up what water we required for our own
use, from the holes in the granite rocks near the river, that lying on
the ground near our camp being too salt for use.
June 27. - Upon moving on this morning we passed towards the Mount Barren
ranges for ten miles through the same sterile country, and then observing
a watercourse coming from the hills, I became apprehensive I should
experience some difficulty in crossing it near the ranges, from their
rocky and precipitous character, and at once turned more southerly to
keep between the sea and a salt lake, into which the stream emptied
itself.
