Back From The Sea, The Country Was Level, Tolerably Open, And Covered With Salsolae, Or Low, Prickly Shrubs, With Here And There Belts Of The Eucalyptus Dumosa.

In places two or three miles back from the coast there was a great deal of grass, that at a better season of the year would have been valuable; now it was dry and sapless.

No timber was visible any where, nor the slightest rise of any kind. The whole of this level region, elevated as it was above the sea, was completely coated over with small fresh water spiral shells, of two different kinds.

After travelling about twenty-five miles along the cliffs, we came all at once to innumerable pieces of beautiful flint, lying on the surface, about two hundred yards inland. This was the place at which the natives had told us they procured the flint; but how it attained so elevated a position, or by what means it became scattered over the surface in such great quantities in that particular place, could only be a matter of conjecture. There was no change whatever in the character or appearance of the country, or of the cliffs, and the latter were as steep and impracticable as ever.

Five miles beyond the flint district we turned a little inland and halted for the night upon a patch of withered grass. During the day we had been fortunate enough to find a puddle of water in a hollow of the rock left by yesterday's rain, at which we watered the horses, and then lading out the remainder into our bucket carefully covered it up with a stone slab until our return, as I well knew, if exposed to the sun and wind, there would not be a drop left in a very few hours. Kangaroos had been seen in great numbers during the day, but we had not been able to get a shot at one. Our provisions were now nearly exhausted, and for some days we had been upon very reduced allowances, so that it was not without some degree of chagrin that we saw so many fine animals bounding unscathed around us.

January 11. - Having travelled fifteen miles further along the cliffs, I found them still continue unchanged, with the same level uninteresting country behind. I had now accomplished all that I expected to do on this excursion, by ascertaining the character of the country around the Great Bight; and as our horses were too weak to attempt to push beyond the cliffs to the next water, and as we ourselves were without provisions, I turned homewards, and by making a late and forced march, arrived at the place where we had left the bucket of water, after a day's ride of forty-five miles. Our precaution as we had gone out proved of inestimable value to us now. The bucket of water was full and uninjured, and we were enabled thus to give our horses a gallon and a half each, and allow them to feed upon the withered grass instead of tying them up to bushes, which we must have done if we had had no water.

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