acter--Features of this part of the country and capabilities of
its coasts--Its adaptation for colonization--Suggestions for the
furtherance of future Expeditions.

ENVIRONS OF THE LAKE ALEXANDRINA.

The foregoing narrative will have given the reader some idea of the state
in which the last expedition reached the bottom of that extensive and
magnificent basin which receives the waters of the Murray. The men were,
indeed, so exhausted, in strength, and their provisions so much reduced by
the time they gained the coast, that I doubted much, whether either would
hold out to such place as we might hope for relief. Yet, reduced as the
whole of us were from previous exertion, beset as our homeward path was by
difficulty and danger, and involved as our eventual safety was in
obscurity and doubt, I could not but deplore the necessity that obliged me
to re-cross the Lake Alexandrina (as I had named it in honour of the heir
apparent to the British crown), and to relinquish the examination of its
western shores. We were borne over its ruffled and agitated surface with
such rapidity, that I had scarcely time to view it as we passed; but,
cursory as my glance was, I could not but think I was leaving behind me
the fullest reward of our toil, in a country that would ultimately render
our discoveries valuable, and benefit the colony for whose interests we
were engaged. Hurried, I would repeat, as my view of it was, my eye never
fell on a country of more promising aspect, or of more favourable
position, than that which occupies the space between the lake and the
ranges of St. Vincent's Gulf, and, continuing northerly from Mount Barker,
stretches away, without any visible boundary.

It appeared to me that, unless nature had deviated from her usual laws,
this tract of country could not but be fertile, situated as it was to
receive the mountain deposits on the one hand, and those of the lake upon
the other.

FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE COAST.

In my report to the Colonial Government, however, I did not feel myself
justified in stating, to their full extent, opinions that were founded on
probability and conjecture alone. But, although I was guarded in this
particular, I strongly recommended a further examination of the coast,
from the most eastern point of Encounter Bay, to the head St. Vincent's
Gulf, to ascertain if any other than the known channel existed among the
sand-hills of the former, or if, as I had every reason to hope from th