In Valleys Sloping Down To This Watercourse We Met, For The First Time, Clumps Of A Tree Called By The Residents Of King George's Sound The Cabbage-Tree, And Not Far From Which Were Native Wells Of Fresh Water; There Were Also Several Patches Of Rich Land Bordering Upon The Watercourse.

Travelling for two miles further, we came to a very pretty fresh-water lake, of moderate size, and surrounded by clumps of tea-tree.

It was the first permanent fresh water we had found on the surface since we commenced our journey from Fowler's Bay - a distance of nearly seven hundred miles. I would gladly have encamped here for the night, but the country surrounding the lake was sandy and barren, and destitute of grass. 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.

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