Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/137

 appear here and there in the bays; some of these bays have a tolerable beach, with high sand hills, at the back of these we principally travelled, and it is as fatiguing a country as ever man or horse walked over; for about three miles inland, there is but little wood,—in the hollows, a few of the banksia, a little cedar, swamp oak, tea tree, grass tree, scrub, and bushes, and, I should add, the peppermint tree, and always water.

On the 4th of February we arrived here. I have not words to convey to his Excellency the great kindness and friendship (of which we stood in the greatest need) with which we were received by Captain Barker, (the commandant,) and officers of the settlement. Dr. Davies, of the 39th, and Mr. Kent, of the Commissariat; and, under the care of Dr. Davies, the party, I trust, will soon recover its strength. From what I have written, it will be concluded, and justly so, that there is a body of available land, with certain extensive tracts or the richest description, fit for the plough, sheep, or cattle, or indeed any cultivation in the interior commencing about twenty-five or thirty miles from King George's Sound, which, under a judicious system of colonization, the main roads being made in the first instance by forced labour, would, in the course of a few years, become inhabited by thousands of industrious men, sent out by the parishes of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or brought out by individuals bettering their condition, as well as relieving their country. I have been induced to make this remark, from the conviction that we can do nothing without the powerful aid of Government, in our infancy. Like every young community, we must be nursed at first, which, though perhaps