es when we
came upon the river Bannister, which here was nothing but a series of
large pools with good feed for cattle about them. We halted for breakfast
and afterwards continued in an easterly direction, when, after travelling
for another six miles, we reached the Hotham. The land we passed over
between the Bannister and Hotham was equal in goodness to any I have seen
in Western Australia.

The circumstance of both water and feed abounding at the Hotham induced
me to halt here for the night, and on the morning of the 15th we
commenced our toilsome march from the Hotham to the Williams; the
distance is about twenty-eight miles in a direct line; the country
consisting of rocky hills, difficult to cross; and throughout the whole
of this distance we could find no water: we were thus for eleven hours
exposed to the sun in one of the hottest days I have ever felt, and we
were not a little glad when just at sunset we found ourselves on the
banks of the Williams.

CONDITION OF DISTANT SETTLERS.

We here found the establishment of an out-settler, of which it would be
difficult to convey an adequate idea: the house consisted of a few
upright poles, one end of each resting on the ground, whilst the other
met a transverse pole, to which they were tied; cross-poles then ran
along these, and to complete the building a sort of rude thatch was tied
on it. It was open at both ends and exposed to the land wind, which, as
the situation was high, I found a very unpleasant visitor during the
night. Here we found a very large flock of sheep in fair condition, also
a well-supplied stockyard, and cattle in beautiful order; upwards of
twenty kangaroo dogs completed the establishment.

These settlers were, at the time I visited the Williams, four in number;
consisting of one young man, two youths, and a little boy. Four soldiers
were quartered about sixteen miles from them, and there was no other
European within fifty miles of the spot. The distance they had to send
for all stores and necessaries was one hundred and twenty miles, and this
through a country untraversed by roads and where they were exposed to the
hostility of the natives in the event of any ill-feeling arising on their
part.

Nothing can give a more lively notion of the difficulties and privations
undergone by first settlers than the fact that, when I left this hut,
they had no flour, tea, sugar, meat, or any provision whatever except
their livestock and the milk of the ca