Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/128

 with a view that the details in the journal, if thought worth reading, might be clearly understood by all. In the first instance, we proceeded to St. Anne's Mountain, on the left bank of the Canning, above Kelmscott about ten miles, when, for the convenience of water, making the Canning, as I knew we should do so in several places, and also that we might cross the Darling Range quickly, we took a S.E. course, and passed the range from the summit of St. Anne's Hill in two days, travelling only about twenty miles. These hills are exceedingly rugged, but on them the finest timber, known in the colony by the name of mahogany; in some of the valleys tolerably good soil, of a light hazel colour, with an abundance of herbage, fit for cattle on their way from a good interior country to the coast; on the uplands iron-stone, with a little gravel and scrub. Arriving on the eastern side of the range in the evening of the 18th, I was induced, seeing a hilly though lower country before us, to continue our route to the S.E., in the hope of entering on those extensive plains of which Mr. Dale and others had spoken so favourably, as being a few miles more to the northward; we therefore pursued the S.E. course until the 23d of December, when coming to a more level country, and by Mr. Smythe's observations, we were in lat. 33°3', long. 117°15'. we changed our route to the S. by E. From the higher range of Darling's Mountains to the point where we changed our direction, we computed it to be about forty miles; and the Assistant Surveyor's observations agreeing with distance supposed to have been traversed at the time, I concluded our position as correctly laid down.

The character of the country through which we had passed, was generally not so good as I had