where there was excellent water. Now that we were again going to continue
our route, I found that the horses were so much improved in appearance
and in strength, that I thought we might once again venture, without
oppression to the animals, occasionally to ride; I selected therefore,
the strongest from among them for this purpose, and Wylie and myself
walked and rode alternately; after passing the scrubby sand-ridges, and
descending to the open downs behind them, I steered direct for Cape Arid,
cutting off Cape Pasley, and encamping after a stage of eighteen miles,
where it bore south-east of us. We halted for the night upon a ridge
timbered with casuarinae, and abounding in grass. Once more we were in a
country where trees were found, and again we were able at night to make
our fires of large logs, which did not incessantly require renewing to
prevent their going out. We had now crossed the level bank which had so
long shut out the interior from us; gradually it had declined in
elevation, until at last it had merged in the surrounding country, and we
hardly knew where it commenced, or how it ended. The high bluff and
craggy hills, whose tops we had formerly seen, stood out now in bold
relief, with a low level tract of country stretching to their base,
covered with dwarf brush, heathy plants and grass-tree, with many
intervals of open grassy land, and abounding in kangaroos. I named these
lofty and abrupt mountain masses the "Russell Range," after the Right
Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies--Lord John Russell.
They constitute the first great break in the character and appearance of
the country for many hundreds of miles, and they offer a point of great
interest, from which future researches may hereafter be made towards the
interior. Nearer to the coast, and on either side of Cape Pasley were
sand-drifts, in which I have no doubt that water might have been
procured. We found none where we were encamped, but had sufficient in the
kegs for our own use, and the horses were not thirsty; many and recent
tracks of natives were observed, but the people themselves were not seen.