lying in horizontal
strata, but which the impracticable nature of the cliffs did not permit
me to examine. After riding for forty-five miles along their summits, I
was in no instance able to descend; their brinks were perfectly steep and
overhanging, and in many places enormous masses appeared severed by deep
cracks from the main land, and requiring but a slight touch to plunge
them into the abyss below. As far as I have yet been along these cliffs,
I have seen nothing in their appearance to lead me to suppose that any
portion of them is composed of chalk. Immediately along their summits,
and for a few hundred yards back, very numerous pieces of pure flint are
lying loosely scattered upon the surface of the limestone. How they
obtained so elevated a position, or whence they are from, may admit,
perhaps, of some speculation. Back from the sea, and as far as the eye
could reach, the country was level and generally open, with some low
prickly bushes and salsolaceous plants growing upon it; here and there
patches of the gum scrub shewed themselves, and among which a few small
grassy openings were interspersed. The whole of this tract was thickly
covered by small land shells, about the size of snail shells--and some of
them somewhat resembling those in shape. There were no sudden depressions
or abrupt elevations anywhere; neither hills, trees, or water were to be
observed; nor was there the least indication of improvement or change in
the general character of this desolate and forbidding region. The natives
we met with at the head of the Bight were very friendly, and readily
afforded us every information we required--as far as we could make them
comprehend our wishes.

"We most distinctly understood from them, that there was no water along
the coast, westerly, for ten of their days' journeys; and that inland,
there was neither fresh nor salt water, hills or timber, as far as they
had ever been; an account which but too well agreed with the opinion I
had myself formed, upon ascertaining that the same dreary, barren region
I had been traversing so long, still continued at a point where I had
ever looked forward to some great and important change taking place in
the features of the country, and from which I had hoped I might
eventually have accomplished the object for which the expedition was
fitted out. Such, however, was not the case; there was not any
improvement in the appearance of the country, or the least indication
tha