June 26.—­I determined to remain in camp today to rest the horses, and to enable me to arrange their loads, so that Wylie and I might again ride occasionally.  We had both walked for the last eleven days, during which we had made good a distance of 134 miles from Rossiter Bay, and as I calculated we ought under ordinary circumstances to reach the Sound in ten days more, I thought that we might occasionally indulge in riding, and relieve ourselves from the great fatigue we had hitherto been subject to, especially as the horses were daily improving in strength and condition.

Whilst I was engaged in making the necessary preparations, and throwing away some things which I thought we could dispense with, such as our bucket, some harness, ammunition, cooking utensils, and sundry other things, Wylie took the rifle, and went down to the watercourse to shoot.  On his return in the afternoon he produced four teal and a black swan, as the produce of his day’s sport; he had, however, shot away every charge of shot from the belt, which had been filled on board the Mississippi, and held three pounds and a half, besides three ball cartridges; how often he fired at the swan before he got it I could never discover, but I heard shot after shot as fast as he could load and fire for some time, and he himself acknowledged to firing at it seven times, but I suspect it to have been nearer twice seven.

To-day we were obliged to fetch up what water we required for our own use, from the holes in the granite rocks near the river, that lying on the ground near our camp being too salt for use.

June 27.—­Upon moving on this morning we passed towards the Mount Barren ranges for ten miles through the same sterile country, and then observing a watercourse coming from the hills, I became apprehensive I should experience some difficulty in crossing it near the ranges, from their rocky and precipitous character, and at once turned more southerly to keep between the sea and a salt lake, into which the stream emptied itself.  After getting nearly half round the lake, our progress was impeded by a dense and most difficult scrub of the Eucalyptus dumosa.  Upon entering it we found the scrub large and strong, and growing very close together, whilst the fallen trees, dead wood, and sticks lying about in every direction, to the height of a man’s breast, rendered our passage difficult and dangerous to the horses in the extreme.  Indeed, when we were in the midst of it, the poor animals suffered so much, and progressed so little, that I feared we should hardly get them either through it or back again.  By dint of great labour and perseverance we passed through a mile of it, and then emerging upon the beach followed it for a short distance, until steep rocky hills coming nearly bluff into the sea, obliged us to turn up under them, and encamp for the night not far from the lake.  Here our horses procured tolerable grass, whilst we obtained a little fresh water for ourselves among the hollows of the rocks.