y like hay cut and pressed ready for packing.

To-day we overtook the natives, whose tracks we had seen so frequently on
our route. There was a large party of them, all busily engaged in eating
the red berries which grew behind the coast ridge in such vast
quantities; they did not appear so much afraid of us as of our horses, at
which they were dreadfully alarmed, so that all our efforts to
communicate with them were fruitless; they would not come near us, nor
would they give us the opportunity of getting near them, but ran away
whenever I advanced towards them, though alone and unarmed. During the
route I frequently ascended high scrubby ridges to reconnoitre the
country inland, but never could obtain a view of any extent, the whole
region around appeared one mass of dense impenetrable scrub running down
to the very borders of the ocean.

After travelling twenty miles I found that our horses needed rest, and
halted for an hour or two during the heat of the day, though without
grass, save the coarse wiry vegetation that binds the loose sands
together, and without even bushes to afford them shade from the heat, for
had we gone into the scrub for shelter we should have lost even the
wretched kind of grass we had.

At half past two we again moved onwards, keeping along the beach, but
frequently forced by the masses of sea-weed to travel above high water
mark in the heavy loose sand. After advancing ten miles the tide became
too high for us to continue on the shore, and the scrub prevented our
travelling to the back, we were compelled therefore to halt for the night
with hardly a blade of grass for our horses. I considered we were now one
hundred and two miles from the last water, and expected we had about
fifty more to go to the next; the poor animals were almost exhausted, but
as the dew was heavy they were disposed to eat had there been grass of
any kind for them. The overseer and I as usual watched them alternately,
each taking the duty for four hours and sleeping the other four; to me
this was the first sleep I had had for the last three nights.

Whilst in camp, during the heat of the day, the native boys shewed me the
way in which natives procure water for themselves, when wandering among
the scrubs, and by means of which they are enabled to remain out almost
any length of time, in a country quite destitute of surface water. I had
often heard of the natives procuring water from the roots of trees, and
had frequentl