aced under my command, for the purpose of exploring the northern
interior. Since my last report to his Excellency the Governor, containing
an account of two most disastrous attempts to head the Great Australian
Bight, I have, accompanied by one of my native boys, made a third and
more successful one. On this occasion, I with some difficulty advanced
about fifty miles beyond the head of the Great Bight, along the line of
high cliffs described by Flinders, and which have hitherto been supposed
to be composed principally of chalk. I found the country between the head
of Fowler's Bay and the head of the Great Bight to consist of a
succession of sandy ridges, all of which were more or less covered by a
low scrub, and without either grass or water for the last sixty miles.
This tract is of so uneven and heavy a nature that it would be quite
impossible for me to take a loaded dray across it at this very
unfavourable season of the year, and with horses so spiritless and jaded
as ours have become, from the incessant and laborious work they have gone
through during the last seven months. Upon rounding the head of the
Bight, I met with a few friendly natives, who shewed me where both grass
and water was to be procured, at the same time assuring me that there was
no more along the coast for ten of their days' journeys, (probably 100
miles) or where the first break takes place in the long and continuous
line of cliffs which extend so far to the westward of the head of the
Great Bight. Upon reaching these cliffs I felt much disappointed, as I
had long looked forward to some considerable and important change in the
character of the country. There was, however, nothing very remarkable in
their appearance, nor did the features of the country around undergo any
material change. The cliffs themselves struck me as merely exhibiting the
precipitous banks of an almost level country of moderate elevation (three
or four hundred feet) which the violent lash of the whole of the Southern
Ocean was always acting upon and undermining. Their rock formation
consisted of various strata, the upper crust or surface being an oolitic
limestone; below this is an indented concrete mixture of sand, soil,
small pebbles, and shells; beneath this appear immense masses of a coarse
greyish limestone, of which by far the greater portion of the cliffs are
composed; and immediately below these again is a narrow stripe of a
whitish, or rather a cream-coloured substance,