without making
a road.

WEAKNESS OF THE MEN.

March 29.

At dawn this morning the men were at work forming the road; the poor
fellows were however so much enfeebled from constant fatigue and very
inefficient nutriment, whilst exposed to the great heat of a tropical
climate, that they were unable to exert the same energy as formerly, and
I could not but be struck with the great difference in their strength as
evinced in their incapacity to move stones and other obstacles, which a
few weeks ago they would have had little difficulty in lifting. The path
was however soon made as passable as our abilities permitted, and we
started along it with the ponies; some of them were however no less
reduced than the men and, in endeavouring to lead one of them up a rocky
hill, it fell, and from weakness sank under its light load without making
an effort to save itself; the spine was thus so severely injured as to
render it unable to move the hinder extremities; we therefore killed the
poor creature and moved on.

SANDSTONE CAVE.

Throughout the day we continued gradually the ascent of the range which
we had yesterday commenced. The large valley we were in led us by a
gentle slope winding higher and higher amongst the rocky hills; at first
it had been so wide as to appear like a plain, but by degrees it
contracted its dimensions, until, towards the afternoon, it suddenly
assumed almost the character of a gorge. Just at this point we saw in the
cliffs on our left hand a cave, which I entered in the hope of finding
native paintings.

Nor was I disappointed for it contained several of a very curious
character. This cave was a natural chasm in the sandstone rocks, elevated
at its entrance several feet above the level of the ground, from which
the ascent to it was by a natural flight of sandstone steps, irregular,
of course, but formed of successive thin strata, resting one upon
another, and thus constituting an easy ascent; these successive layers
continued into the body of the cave, quite to the end, where was a
central slab, more elevated than the others, and on each side of this two
other larger ones which reached the top of the cave and partly served to
support the immense sandstone slab that formed the roof.

ANOTHER PAINTED CAVE.

The cave was twenty feet deep and at the entrance seven feet high and
about forty feet wide. As before stated the floor gradually approached
the roof in the direction of the bottom of the cavern,