to do so. About
this period also, owing to his powder-horn having been placed too near
the fire, it was accidentally blown away, and he was thus left totally
without protection in the event of any attack being made on them by the
natives. His own courage and resolution however never failed, and he
still made the best of his way to the southward, seizing every
opportunity of making westing. For twelve days he pursued this course,
subsisting on native roots and boiled tops of grass trees. About the
sixth day he fell in with some natives; but they ran away, being
frightened at the appearance of white men, and he thus could obtain no
assistance from them. At this period the filly strayed away from the mare
and was lost. His men behaved admirably; and on the fourteenth day the
party succeeded in reaching Augusta, having previously made the coast at
the remarkable white-sand patch about fifty miles to the eastward of it.

Notwithstanding the hardships and sufferings they had undergone this
party were but very little reduced in strength and, after recruiting for
a few days at Augusta, returned along the coast to Leschenault, where I
had the pleasure of seeing them all in good health and spirits.

THE VASSE DISTRICT.

January 21.

Whilst the party reposed themselves this day at Leschenault I hired a
horse and rode along the shores of Geographe Bay for the purpose of
seeing the Vasse district. The country between Leschenault and the Vasse
differs from those other parts of Western Australia that I have yet seen
in the circumstance that in several parts, between the sea and the recent
limestone formation, basaltic rocks are developed. A long chain of marshy
lakes lie between the usual coast sandhills and the ordinary sand
formations, about which there is some good land and good feed. About the
river Capel also there is a great deal of good land. The mouths of two
estuaries that occur between the inlet of Leschenault and the bottom of
Geographe Bay are both fordable. The district near the bottom of
Geographe Bay contains much good land, consisting of level plains thickly
covered with wattle trees; there are also at this season of the year
extensive plains of dry sand, which bear exactly the appearance of a
desert.

I passed the night at the house of Mr. Bussel, a settler who has the best
and most comfortable establishment I have seen in the colony, and
returned the next day to Leschenault with the intention of starting the
fo