Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/67

 past 6, and proceeded to the Southern River, which we had only conjectured the preceding night to exist. An arm, from one mile and a half wide to two miles and a half, extends from the S.W. angle of the large sheet of water, nearly and with little turning in a S. by E. direction, for about eight miles and a half. It is of a good depth for boats except about seven miles up, where there is a small sandy island near its middle, producing shrubs and small trees of the casuarina and melaleuca, and from which flats, that our boats touched on, extend from both sides to the banks opposite. The rising ground on the bank is formed of sand and calcareous petrefactions of trees; the lower chiefly of siliceous sand, which, however, forms a smaller than usual proportion. The surface in these last places is inclined to swampy, and every where except on two elevated points. On the right bank, covered with wood, natives were seen in great numbers, and from twenty to thirty came down to the boats, and seemed very anxious that we should not go away from them. At the southern end of this arm, it became so very shallow that it was with great labour that the men got the boats over into a deep narrow channel that formed many abrupt turnings. As we ascended, first taking a direction so for one-eighth of a mile, then S.W. one-fifth of a mile, and after that about one-twelfth of a mile more, formed a short reach W.N.W.; we continued to ascend S.S.W., S.E., S. by E., S.E., E.N.E., E., S.S.E., and E.N.E., where we stopped for the night at half past 4,p.m. two miles and a half from the last flats, the men having been pulling almost the whole time, from our departure in the morning, against a good deal of sea and a strong wind from the S.S.W. We had scarcely entered the