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CAPTAIN BARKER'S NARRATIVE.

from the mouth of the Sleeman, now a dry sand. I found Mount Lindesay, (the highest part) N. 39° ½ W. Mount Hallowell W. 5° S., agreeing as nearly as could be expected with your owm. I took various other bearings, both here and at other places, but have not time to arrange them. Meanwhile the rest of the party moved on to the Hay, to shoot ducks, but were unsuccessful. Beyond the Hay, we found some very fine blue gum, though the soil was not apparently rich. There was sometimes, however, a narrow strip near the inlet, of thick grass. The bay expands considerably, as you imagined, on the north shore, but not on the south. We followed its different windings, from the difficulty of getting over the points of land, where was often an almost impenetrable underwood, and about ten miles of not a very straight course brought us from the Hay to the mouth of the Denmark, about forty yards wide, deep, with a muddy bottom, and little or no stream. We were obliged to make a considerable détour into the inlet to avoid deep water, and passed where it did not exceed thirty inches. Those who preceded fell in with two native women, one of them perfectly naked, each carrying a child in a bag of kangaroo skin, and leading another. They were a little startled till they saw Mokărē, with whom they stopped to chat a few minutes, but would not wait for me. I was then a little up the river, swimming about for three ducks that had been shot. We proceeded two or three miles farther, quitting the inlet, and halted for the night at a water hole in the bed of a small mountain stream. Mount Hallowell bearing W. 34° S. distant two miles and a half.

February 5th.—Wound round the N.E. of Mount Warrumbup, over stony and rocky ground, but with fine blue gum occasionally, and again approaching the inlet, stopped to breakfast at a small running stream washing the foot of Mount Hallowell. Here two natives joined us, and I left them with half our party to spear wallabi and shoot ducks, while I went with Mr. Kent and Mokărē to the mouth of the inlet, wading through some luxuriant grass, in a rich soil part of the way, but it was of no great extent. We passed a few small streamlets, but with little water in them, the dry weather since you were here, having made a great change. The inlet, as you approach its mouth, for a mile or two becomes shallow all the way across. The communication between it and the sea is through a