enty-two miles north of the position assigned to Port
Grey in Arrowsmith's map, before alluded to.)

Thus terminated our exploration of this part of the country, called, by
Captain Grey, the Province of Victoria; and certainly all we had seen of
it deserved the character of sterility, which in some measure it appears
to retain further northward, as we learn from the report of Lieutenant
Helpman, who has recently visited it in the colonial schooner Champion.
We did not, on our route, fall in with any native, but on reaching the
boat, found that a party of five men had approached the beach, and held
friendly communication with Mr. Pasco, who, in exchange for a
handkerchief or two, had obtained from them a hunger belt, composed of
wallaby furs, a throwing stick, and a nose-piece of kangaroo bone. They
were entirely naked, and slightly scarred, but were not smeared with the
red pigment called wilgy, and had their hair knotted upon the crown of
their head, like the natives of the neighbourhood of King's Sound.

SAIL FROM CHAMPION BAY.

On the morning of the 16th we were again on our way southwards, with,
strange to say at that season of the year, westerly winds, which
prevailed for the three succeeding days.

KOOMBANAH BAY.

After touching at Swan River (where, finding His Excellency the Governor
still absent, an account of our cruise was left with the
Surveyor-General) we reached Koombanah Bay on the 27th. Mr. Forsyth, whom
I had sent overland, had completed the survey of this anchorage, and
Leschenault Inlet, which it joins in the south corner by a narrow boat
channel. The wreck of a large whale ship in the head of the bay shows the
folly of attempting to ride out the winter gales to which it is exposed;
but this may be remedied by a breakwater thrown out from Point Casuarina,
of which nature has laid the foundation in the reef that extends out
across the bay in the desired direction. The strong outset from the
estuary during the rainy season materially lessens the strain upon the
cables of ships caught there by a gale. The peculiarity in the formation
of this neighbourhood consists in some basaltic columns on the coast
close to Point Casuarina.

We devoted the 28th to making observations,* etc.; and I was surprised to
find that this part of the coast was laid down four miles too much to the
northward.

(*Footnote. These observations were made on the beach, midway between
Point Casuarina and the mouth of the estuar