ington on the N. W. coast.

About eleven I moved on the party up the Light for 8 miles, and then
halted after an easy stage. As the horses were fresh and the men were not
yet accustomed to driving them, I was anxious to move quietly on at
first, that nothing might be done in a hurry, and every one might
gradually settle down to what he had to perform, and that thus by a
little care and moderation at first, those evils, which my former
travelling had taught me were frequently the result of haste or
inexperience, might be avoided. Nothing is more common than to get the
withers of horses wrung, or their shoulders and backs galled at the
commencement of a journey, and nothing more difficult than to effect a
cure of this mischief whilst the animals are in use. By the precaution
which I adopted, I succeeded in preventing this, for the present.

As we passed up the valley of the Light, we had some rich and picturesque
scenery around us--the fertile vale running nearly north and south,
backed to the westward by well wooded irregular ranges grassed to their
summits, and to the eastward shut in by a dark looking and more heavily
timbered range, beyond which rose two peaks of more distant hills,
through the centre of the valley the Light took its course, but at
present it was only a chain of large ponds unconnected by any stream; and
thus, I believe, it remains the greater part of the year, although
occasionally swollen to a broad and rapid current.

June 24.--The horses having strayed a little this morning, and given us
some trouble to get them, it was rather late when we started; we,
however, crossed the low ridges at the head of the Light, and entering
upon extensive plains to the north, we descended to a channel, which I
took to be the head of a watercourse called the "Gilbert."

Finding here some tolerably good water and abundance of grass, I halted
the party for the night, though we were almost wholly without firewood,
an inconvenience that we felt considerably, as the nights now were very
cold and frosty. Our stage had been fourteen miles to-day, running at
first over low barren ridges, and then crossing rich plains of a loose
brown soil, but very heavy for the drays to travel over.

At our camp, a steep bank of the watercourse presented an extensive
geological section, but there was nothing remarkable in it, the substrata
consisting only of a kind of pipe clay.

June 25.--Upon starting this morning we traversed a succ