Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/140

 ing we struck towards the shore again, and came upon a deep bay, with a heavy surge on the shore, and many rocks and breakers, extending from the bay out to six or eight miles, to sea. We here found the jolly boat of the Cumberland, with the ship's name on her stern, and other parts of the Cumberland. Between this bay and Cape Naturaliste we found the best land in the whole of our route. We reckoned our march on this and the succeeding days at an average of twenty-five miles. The land passed over to-day was still superior to that of yesterday. The country generally between this and our first day's encampment was undulating with fine valleys, well covered with a silky grass, not the kangaroo grass; and with plenty of capital springs. The ground is not flooded ground—it contains many excellent situations for farms, well cleared of timber. On the evening of the third day, two or three miles from the boat, we came to a river about thirty or forty feet wide at the mouth, but much wider about one hundred yards upwards; there was a naked sand-bank all across the mouth, over which we passed; this bank or bar was forty yards from the sea. The black boys, growing in the country we had hitherto passed over, were the underground ones, the rushes of which are not brittle. On the fourth we traversed the same description of country as on the third; we kept at the distance of from three to five miles from the sea-shore. On the fifth day we encountered some very brushy country, and very rough and rocky; they were decidedly lime-stone rocks,—I know them to be so from having wrought at a lime-stone quarry—their quality was very good. We found plenty of good water, in the shape of springs, in the hollows of the rock sloping down to the sea; this day we did not