degree recovered from their former tired-out condition, they had not
picked up in flesh or regained their spirits; the sapless, withered state
of the grass and the severe cold of the nights had prevented them from
deriving the advantage that they ought to have done from so long a
respite from labour. Still I hoped we might be successful. We had
lingered day by day, until it would have been folly to have waited
longer; the rubicon was, however, now passed, and we had nothing to rely
upon but our own exertions and perseverance, humbly trusting that the
great and merciful God who had hitherto guarded and guidedus in safety
would not desert us now.

Upon leaving the camp we left behind one carbine, a spade, some horse
hobbles, and a few small articles, to diminish as much as possible the
weight we had to carry. For eight miles we traced round the beach to the
most north-westerly angle of the Bight, and for two miles down its
south-west shore, but were then compelled by the rocks to travel to the
back, through heavy scrubby ridges for four miles; after which we again
got in to the beach, and at one mile along its shore, or fifteen miles
from our camp, we halted for the night, at a patch of old grass. The
afternoon had been hot, but the night set in cold and clear, and all
appearance of rain was gone. The native I had sent on before had not
succeeded in getting a fish, though he had broken one or two spears in
his attempts.

April 28.--After travelling along the beach for two miles we ascended
behind the cliffs, which now came in bluff to the sea, and then keeping
along their summits, nearly parallel with the coast, and passing through
much scrub, low brushwood, and dwarf tea-tree growing upon the rocky
surface, we made a stage of twenty miles; both ourselves and the horses
greatly tired with walking through the matted scrub of tea-tree every
where covering the ground. The cliffs did not appear so high as those we
had formerly passed along, and probably did not exceed from two to three
hundred feet in elevation. They appeared to be of the same geological
formation; the upper crust an oolitic limestone, with many shells
embedded, below that a coarse, hard, grey limestone, and then alternate
streaks of white and yellow in horizontal strata, but which the steepness
of the cliffs prevented my going down to examine.

Back from the sea, the country was rugged and stony, and every where
covered with scrub or dwarf tea-tree. There