About two hours and a half after starting we crossed the southern branch of the Moore River, which was running strong; but the rain, which had only just ceased, prevented our being thirsty.
The whole of this day's route lay over hills similar to those we had found yesterday. We moved on, occasionally halting for a few minutes, until it was so dark we could no longer see, and then laid down, having again this day tasted no food.
MISERY FROM RAIN AND COLD.
It rained hard all night and our miseries of the last one were repeated. We were also less able to bear them, being weaker from longer abstinence. This day we travelled about one-and-twenty miles.
DESPONDING FEELINGS.
April 20.
This morning we rose again, weak and stiffened from the cold and wet; life had long ceased to have any charms for me, and I fancy that the others must have experienced a similar feeling. A disinclination to move pervaded the whole, and I had much the same desire to sink into the sleep of death, that one feels to take a second slumber of a morning after great fatigue. My life was not worth the magnitude of the effort that it cost me to move; but other lives depended on mine, so I rose up weak and giddy and by degrees induced the rest to start also. Poor Coles however was in a dreadful state.
The country through which we were travelling is intersected by a long line of lakes which run nearly parallel to the sea for a distance of about forty-five miles. One of the party had travelled in the same direction with me before, but we had then kept along the edge of the lakes. He had imagined however that they were only two or three miles distant from the sea, whereas many of them were as much as eight or ten. The route we were pursuing was about midway between the lakes and the sea, and this man seeing nothing of the lakes could not be convinced that I was right in the position I said we then were; for I assured the men they were not more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight miles to the north of Perth; but I heard him relating his doubts, which tended to discourage the others very much.
A PARTY OF NATIVES.
We however walked on as well as we could until near noon, at which time, from excessive weakness, we had not made more than eight miles, or about a mile and a quarter an hour, when we suddenly came out on the bed of a dried-up swamp, now looking like a desert of white sand studded with reeds. The forms of natives were seen wandering about this, one mile from us, who were searching for frogs. There was a very numerous party, and they did not appear at all inclined to approach us. Now it was very evident that if we were so near Perth as I imagined these natives must be well acquainted with Europeans; for although but very little was known of the country to the north of Perth, and the farthest settlement in that direction was only four miles from the town, still the natives must, from mere curiosity, have been frequently in the settlement.