June 29.—­Our course in the first instance was directed in such a manner as to compass the lagoons, which after travelling about three miles and a half to the south-west, we accomplished, and again came upon the stream; the country thence backward bore the marks of being at some periods near three feet under water, and was covered with small box-trees:  the country from our rejoining the river, to the place at which we stopped for the evening, consisted of barren plains, extending on both sides of the stream to a considerable distance backward.  The points of the bends of the river were universally wet swamps with large lagoons; the back land, though equally subject to flood, was now dry; but the travelling was very heavy, the ground being a rotten, red, sandy loam, on which nothing grew but the usual production of marshes.  I never saw a stream with so many sinuosities; in many places a quarter of a mile would cut off at least three miles by the river.  The stream was in places much contracted, sand banks stretching nearly across; its medium depth was about eight feet.

There was not the smallest eminence whence a view might be obtained, the country appearing a dead level; and although on these plains we could see for some distance all round, yet there was not a rising ground in any direction.  The plains on the north side of the stream were named Holdsworthy; and those on the south, Harrington.  We were lucky enough to procure two fine emus.

June 30.—­The first two or three miles were somewhat harder travelling than the greater part of yesterday.  Immense plains extended to the westward, as far as the eye could reach.  These plains were entirely barren, being evidently in times of rain altogether under water, when they doubtless form one vast lake:  they extended in places from three to six miles from the margin of the stream, which on its immediate borders was a wet bog, full of small water holes, and the surface covered with marsh plants, with a few straggling dwarf box-trees.  It was only on the very edge of the bank, and in the bottoms of the bights, that any eucalypti grew; the plains were covered with nothing but gnaphalium:  the soil various, in some places red tenacious clay, in others a dark hazel-coloured loam, so rotten and full of holes that it was with difficulty the horses could travel over them.  Although those plains were bounded only by the horizon, not a semblance of a hill appeared in the distance; we seemed indeed to have taken a long farewell of every thing like an elevation, whence the surrounding country could be observed.  To the southward, bounding those plains in that direction, barren scrubs and dwarf box-trees, with numberless holes of stagnant water, too clearly proclaimed the nature of the country in that quarter.  We could see through the openings of the trees on the river that plains of similar extent occupied the other side, which has all along appeared to us to be (if any thing) the lower ground.  We travelled in the centre of the plains, our medium distance from the river being from one to two miles; and although we did not go above thirteen miles, some of the horses were excessively distressed from the nature of the ground.