cellent and abundant: the name of the place was
Yeer-kumban-kauwe.

Whilst I was employed in digging a large square hole, to enable us to dip
the bucket when watering the horses, the native boy went, accompanied by
one of the natives as a guide, to look for grass. Upon his return, he
said he had been taken to a small plain about a mile away, behind the
sand hills, where there was plenty of grass, though of a dry character;
to this we sent the horses for the night. In returning, a few sea fowl
were shot as a present for our friends, with whom we encamped, gratified
that we had at last surmounted the difficulty of rounding the Great
Bight, and that once more we had a point where grass and water could be
procured, and from which we might again make another push still further
to the westward.

In the evening, we made many inquiries of the natives, as to the nature
of the country inland, the existence of timber, rocks, water, etc. and
though we were far from being able to understand all that they said, or
to acquire half the information that they wished to convey to us, we
still comprehended them sufficiently to gather many useful and important
particulars. In the interior, they assured us, most positively, there was
no water, either fresh or salt, nor anything like a sea or lake of any
description.

They did not misunderstand us, nor did we misapprehend them upon this
point, for to our repeated inquiries for salt water, they invariably
pointed to a salt lake, some distance behind the sand-hills, as the only
one they knew of, and which at this time we had not seen.

With respect to hills or timber, they said, that neither existed inland,
but that further along the coast to the westward, we should find trees of
a larger growth, and among the branches of which lived a large animal,
which by their description, I readily recognized as being the Sloth of
New South Wales; an animal whose habits exactly agreed with their
description, and which I knew to be an inhabitant of a barren country,
where the scrub was of a larger growth than ordinary. One of the natives
had a belt round his waist, made of the fur of the animal they described,
and on inspecting it, the colour and length of the hair bore out my
previous impression.

The next water along the coast we were informed, was ten days journey
from Yeerkumban kauwe, and was situated among sand-drifts, similar to
those we were at, but beyond the termination of the line of cliffs,