Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/176

 In returning down the French River from the boat stoppage, a few hundred yards W. by S. brought me upon a slope of good grassy land, about 100 acres, moderately wooded with red gum. From this to the fresh water streamlet (one mile and a quarter), the banks of which I described on the 27th, I found nothing eligible for the farmer; and I was scarcely more fortunate in proceeding about S. by W. to the bottom of Oyster Harbour, at some distance from the river, the greater part of the way a line of eminences intervening between us. Three-quarters of a mile before arriving at the harbour we came upon a stream of water flowing through a swampy and shrubby hollow, that affords a rough but green pasturage, even at present, and in which the stream is lost before it reaches the salt water.

Whilst dinner was preparing, and until the shutting in of the day, too short at this season of the year for exploring, I examined the height and banks on the right of French River nearest its mouth, and found them either a light gravelly loam, or very sandy, producing mahogany and casuarina trees, and an useless shrub.

The party stopped on the channel last mentioned, but so near its mouth that the water found in it was a continuance of the salt water of the harbour; but a native who happened to be with us procured fresh from some holes at a short distance.

May 4th.—I crossed the moderate elevation that lies to the westward of our bivouac, at a short distance from the beach to the mouth of King River, and observed it to be rocky, and wooded in a great proportion with red gum. A swampy and boggy hollow separates it from the highest ground in the vicinity, on the west and north of the embouchure