Latitude 21 degrees 49 minutes 40 seconds.
9th June (Sunday).
Less than a mile this morning brought us to a grassy channel containing water, which was followed up for a short distance, when we halted for the remainder of the day to refresh our tired and famished horses. Camp 16.
A NATIVE CHILD.
10th June.
The channel of the river was still followed for several miles to the eastward, when it again disappeared in open plains extending to the base of the Hamersley Range, which still continued to run parallel to the river at about seven miles distance to the southward. Pools of water were occasionally found in channels scooped out of the alluvial soil of which the plains were composed--the waters of the Fortescue, during the period of the summer rains, spreading over the country for miles and leaving a rich deposit of alluvial mud, adding greatly to its fertility. In the course of the afternoon we came suddenly on a party of natives, digging roots. One woman, with a child of about five years of age, hid close to our line of march, and did not move until she was afraid of being run over by the pack-horses, when she ran away, leaving the child gazing upon the monster intruders with a look of passive wonder. It was a poor, ill-conditioned-looking object, suffering from a cutaneous disorder. On giving it a piece of damper, it quickly began to devour it, tearing it to fragments with its sharp and attenuated fingers, with all the keenness of a hawk. We left it standing with a lump of bread in each hand, where its mother would no doubt find it when she came to see what had been left of it by the large dogs, as the aborigines of this part of Australia call our horses. Travelling on till late, we encamped in an open grassy plain, without water. Camp 17.
Latitude 21 degrees 55 minutes 57 seconds; longitude 118 degrees 3 minutes.
ROCKY RANGES.
11th June.
Four miles to the south-east we came upon a pool of brackish water, surrounded with bulrushes, in a channel coming from the south of the Hamersley Range, again apparently offering us a chance of getting to the southward. We accordingly struck for the gorge out of which this stream came, and succeeded in penetrating for three miles up a very rocky gully, filled with some of the harshest triodia we had yet encountered, and had to halt for the night in a narrow pass, where there was scarcely room to tie up our horses. Camp 18.