Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/129

 hoped to have seen, but there were not wanting tracts of excellent land—that for upwards of six miles broad, for instance, as mentioned in the Journal of the 19th December;—and as it is a country in which there is a great deal of food for stock, I would by no means condemn it; on the contrary, my impression was, on a closer examination, there will be found available land to a considerable extent to the west and east, in both of which directions the water courses tended generally, and in their courses the soil was generally a very fair brown loam. The timber is the mahogany, the blue and red gums, with (in the valleys of the last few miles) the white gum; in the swamps, and very low lands, the banksia and tea tree. From the 23d to the 5th of January we pursued a S. by E. course for eighty or ninety miles of actual distance, through, in many tracks, a country which surpassed our most sanguine expectations; a very great proportion of this tract was land of the first description, fit for the plough, sheep, or cattle. The beauty of the scenery near to, and distant from, the rivers which we crossed, is equal to any I have seen in the most cultivated timbered country, in those parts of Europe which I have happened to pass through. The character of the country generally is undulating, with here and there moderately high hills, some of them crowned with rocks of granite, pudding-stone rocks, and a blue stone; but there are broad flat lands and valleys, the former of which, as will be seen in the Journal, not unfrequently extended several miles, even in some places far beyond our power to ascertain. The hills were in general so gradual in their ascent, that where those of a rougher character were seen, they only gave a certain character to the country, that destroyed the dull feeling of the mind which