Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/231

 Towards the decline of the day, the country was, if any thing, steeper than we had yet found it, and from the top of a hill, I saw through the trees a distant undulating horizon. I at first thought I could see the White Patch, as I looked through a small opera glass, but no one seconded my opinion, and, from recent occurrences, I concluded it to have been the high land behind Augusta; it bore S.S.W. about thirty miles.

We were now some time without water, the next we made, was a small rivulet flowing east.

Early in the day, I had not expected to have reached the Blackwood that night, as I had calculated it somewhat more distant than the usual extent of our marches; since, however, we had already gone further than usual, and were, according to my reckoning, within a mile of that river, I was unwilling to halt here; the course of this stream seemed to indicate its proximity; I accordingly walked about a mile farther, and finally bivouaoed on another streamlet, flowing the same way; here we put up two large kangaroos; the land, for tht last few miles, had been less hilly and rocky; we all suffered much from cold this night. The next morning, after a walk of three quarters of an hour, I came on the seaward branch of the Blackwood, about 200 yards from the point of its junction with the main stream; and this, which on a former occasion had proved such an obstacle, was now easily passed, near its mouth, by means of a large fallen tree.

My error in making the Blackwood about two miles west of the point I originally steered for, arose probably from this cause. The first part of our journey to the Vasse, in which I made my easting, was rated at the samee average with the rest, whereas.