herbage is so excellent that an acre is capable of feeding one sheep,
whereas in other parts three or four are required.

From a pointed hill, called the Sugarloaf, fifty-eight miles from
Portland, I had an extensive view of this fertile district: the outlines
of those magnificent mountains, the Victoria and Grampian ranges, that
completed the distant part of the landscape, to the eastward, were
distinctly defined against the clear morning sky; whilst, in the
foreground, grassy round-topped hills, rose on either side of wide
valleys sparingly dotted with trees, marking the course of the streams
that meander through them, and the margin of the singular circular
waterholes, with sides so steep as to render it necessary to cut through
them to enable the cattle to drink, that were distributed around as if
formed by art, rather than by nature. Westward, I saw the winding course
of the Glenelg, and was told that some of the squatters had located
themselves on its banks, and that others were even talking of stations
(which they have since made) as far as the volcanic mountains, Schanck
and Gambier, where there is some rich country, recently visited from
Adelaide, by Governor Grey, who has discovered that the barrier of desert
between New South Wales and South Australia, is less marked than was
supposed; there being patches of good land intervening, so that at no
very distant day, we may hope to see the whole of the coast, from Port
Phillip to Spencer's Gulf, supporting a scattered white population.

I noticed that there was a vast superiority in the soil on the north-west
side of the hills; but saw none equal in richness to the five-mile patch
at Mount Eckersley.

The steep sides of a part of the valley of the Wannon, however, a few
miles to the eastward of the Sugarloaf, are very fertile, and being
clothed with patches of woodland, form extremely pretty scenery. The
rocks of this part of the country are chiefly trappean; in the immediate
neighbourhood of Portland, they consist of limestone, ferruginous
sandstone, and trap.

CAPE BRIDGEWATER.

After having extended our ride to above seventy miles, we returned,
having satisfied ourselves, from what we had seen and heard, that there
was a greater extent of good land here, than at South Australia; though
it was more scattered, and farther from the sea. On our way, we met a
party of natives; and seeing a bundle of spears leaning against a tree, I
rode up to examine them, bu