Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/169

 suggested a succession of similar soil, from its continuance in the same direction, and Mokare strengthened this idea by his declaration that it was well founded. His addition, too, that no water was to be found to the N.E. or N., and the hopeful prospect to the N. W., finished by determining me to direct my steps to the more inviting vale of Kâlgan (French River). I walked along this vale, or low plain, on a clayey loam, dry at that time, but bearing the marks of a winter marsh, that had produced a short and thin grass with a few shrubs. The white gums, for the first time, shewed themselves, affording a slight skirting on the gentle elevation of the northern side, and, as I advanced, demonstrated to a distance in front, by their thicker array, the situation and course of the river, on the banks of which I arrived, after a walk of two miles and three quarters from the station of the preceding bearings. At this spot, which Mokare calls Kamballup, I was a little astonished to see the water in the channel about sixty yards wide, but, on proceeding a few minutes upwards to its source, I was as much surprised to see neither water nor channel, for the latter had been filled with tall shrubs, now burnt, without any well defined banks. I went on for a mile and a half N.N.W., and then for a mile and three quarters nearly west, over a very indifferent soil, gravelly and sandy, with, however, a few interruptions of good, and came to the channel of the river, where the water stood in small and exceedingly brackish ponds. A little further on there was abundance of drinkable, although still brackish water in the channel.

I kept on the left (north) bank, and passed over, west, a fine gently swelling rise of gravelly but good soil, enhanced to the eye by tall and distant white