essential to the success of the expedition. He was
always diverting the minds of his followers from the obstacles we daily
encountered, and encouraging them to hope for better success; careful in
all his observations and calculations, as to the position of his camp,
and cautious not to plunge into difficulties, without personal
observation of the country, to enable him to take the safest path. But
having decided, he pursued his deliberate determination with steady
perseverance, sharing in the labour of cutting through the scrub, and all
the harassment attendant on travelling through such a wilderness, with as
much (or greater) alacrity and zeal as any of his followers. It was often
grievous to me to hear some of the party observe, after we had passed
over some difficult tract, that a better road might have been found, a
little to the right or to the left. Such observations were the most
unjust and vexatious, as in all matters of difficulty and of opinion, he
would invariably listen to the advice of all, and if he thought it
prudent, take it. For my own part, I can safely say, that I was always
ready to obey his orders, and conform to his directions, confident as I
then was of his abilities to lead us to the place of our destination as
speedily as possible.

June 23.

We started early this morning, and proceeded along the beach till we came
to a small river, which was narrow and shallow, but the bottom being
muddy, and it being low-water, we diverged towards the sea, where the
sand was firmer, and there crossed it with little difficulty, without
unloading the packhorses or carts. The tide runs but a short distance up
this river, and as far as the tide goes it is fringed with a belt of
mangroves. The banks are muddy, and so soft that a man sinks up to his
knees in walking along them. A little above the mangroves the river
divides into several small creeks, in swampy ground, covered with small
melaleucas so thickly, that although they are not at all bushy below, but
have straight trunks of from three to five inches in diameter, and from
ten to twenty feet high, a man can scarcely walk between them.

After crossing this river we again turned inland for a short distance,
and camped by the side of a small river south of the last; with steep
grassy banks on the north side, overhung by Tristanias and arborescent
Callistemons. On the south side grew mangroves, and the large
blue-flowered Ruellia seen at our first camp. The tid