ve-and-twenty yards wide, which I named
the Greenough; and travelling up it a short distance we found a spot
where we could cross by stepping from rock to rock. Its waters were quite
salt. I continued our route for about three miles, when I found it was
impossible to induce some of the men to walk any further; they laid
sullenly down and were so fully convinced that I was pursuing a wrong
system in marching so far in a day, and never halting for two or three
days to refresh, as they wished, that I could do nothing with them, and
was therefore forced to sit down too. Corporal Auger soon afterwards
found water near us, and I moved the party down to it.

Finding water in some degree revived their spirits and I contrived to get
them to proceed seven miles more before nightfall, the way being over
sandy open plains very favourable for walking.

MORE NATIVE HUTS.

We passed a large assemblage of native huts of the same permanent
character as those I have before mentioned: there were two groups of
those houses close together in a sequestered nook in a wood, which taken
collectively would have contained at least a hundred and fifty natives.
We halted for the night in the dry bed of a watercourse, abounding in
grass, so that we again enjoyed the luxury of a soft bed. At first I
thought that we were near natives from hearing a plaintive cry like that
of a child, but Kaiber assured me that it was the cry of the young of the
wild turkey.

CROSS THE HEADS OF TWO BAYS.

In the course of this day we travelled across the heads of two bays,
which were indistinctly visible through the woods.

FERTILE VALLEY.

April 9.

The first three miles of our route this day lay over sandy scrubby
plains; we saw however a good country to the eastward. I found that a man
of the name of Charley Woods was much knocked up; he was a supporter of
the eight or nine miles a day system, and had a very heavy load with no
portion of which could I induce him to part; he however insisted on
sitting down every half mile and detaining the party, and as I found that
they got more worn out and weaker, and the impression in favour of long
rests and short marches became much stronger, I thought it more prudent
to acquiesce for the present.

We now reached a very thick belt of trees, pushing through which was a
task of great difficulty, but at length we emerged upon some clear hills
overlooking a very extensive and fertile valley, from which arose so
dense a