at the edge of it was about fifteen feet, and the bed of the river
was composed of porous red sand apparently incapable of containing water
unless when previously saturated with it. After passing the highest point
reached by the sea this huge river bed was perfectly dry, and looked the
most mournful, deserted spot imaginable. Occasionally we found in this
bare sandy channel waterholes of eighteen or twenty feet in depth,
surrounded with tea trees and vegetation, and the driftwood, washed high
up into these trees, sufficiently attested what rapid currents sometimes
swept along the now dry channel. Even the waterholes were nearly all
dried up, and in the bottom of these the natives had scooped their little
wells.

The river channel ran up in a due north-east direction for about four
miles without in the least altering its character. It was in vain that we
walked over the intervening slips of land into the side channels; these
in all respects except in being narrower exactly resembled the main one;
and, after ranging across from bank to bank in this way, the only general
conclusion I could arrive at was that the country upon the northern bank
of the river appeared scrubby and covered with samphire swamps, whilst
that upon its southern bank seemed rich and promising.

EXPLORE THE COUNTRY INLAND TO THE NORTH OF THE RIVER.

The river now made a sudden turn to the east by north, and we followed it
in this direction for three miles and a half without finding the
slightest change in its character or appearance. No high land whatever
was in sight, and from a low rounded hill, which was the highest point we
could see, the rise of the country towards the interior was scarcely
perceptible; indeed it presented the appearance of being a vast delta;
and such I then and subsequently conjectured it to be.

During our walk up the bed of the river we had seen many cockatoos, some
wildfowl, and numerous tracks of natives; these all appeared to me to be
indications of a well watered and fertile tract of country.

I now turned off west by south, quitting the bed of the river, which I
named the Gascoyne in compliment to my friend, Captain Gascoyne, and
found that we were in a very fertile district, being one of those
splendid exceptions to the general sterility of Australia which are only
occasionally met with: it apparently was one immense delta of alluvial
soil covered with gently sloping grassy rises, for they could scarcely be
called