On the day of arrival the Captain landed with five persons and three dogs at High Bluff Point, to explore from thence to Hanover Bay. Coles was one of the number. The sun was intensely hot. A long confinement on ship-board had made them unequal to much exertion. Forward, however, they journeyed, without the advantage of trees or foliage to screen them from the sun’s burning rays. The country, too, was rocky; and its surface, jagged and torn into crevices, being overgrown with spinifex and scrub, they frequently either slipped or fell into the covered fissures. Soon the party was overcome by thirst and lassitude. Two pints of water was all that was brought from the ship, and this, shared with the panting dogs, left but little for the adventurers. As time wore on, their weariness, before excessive, became worse, and the dogs falling back exhausted, were never recovered. Water was at length observed at the bottom of a ravine, and down its precipitous slopes Coles and others scrambled, only to mock the thirst they craved to satiate, for the inlet was salt water! However, after travelling for about another mile, fortune favoured them with a pool of brackish water, from which they drank freely.[304] ----- Footnote 304: Ibid., 1841, i. p 67-71. ----- Whilst the party rested by the pool, Captain Grey, accompanied by Coles, explored the ravine, and then returning, led the party into the country by a fertile valley surrounded by rocky hills. Not long after, the thirst and fatigue so dreaded before, recurred in an aggravated form, and some were almost completely worn out by it. To march through the night without fresh water was next to impossible; and as a last effort to obtain relief, the Captain pushed on for the coast, directing that when he fired, Mr. Lushington with the party should follow.[305] ----- Footnote 305: ‘Grey’s Travels,’ 1841, i. p. 71-73. -----