They started from the head of the Swan River, on a northeasterly course, and on the 16th of July, reached the Cow-cowing Lake, reported by the aborigines, and hoped by the colonists, to be a sheet of fresh water in the Gascoyne valley. The take proved to be dry, and the bed covered with salt incrustation, showing its character when full. Thence Austin made directly north, and passed through the wretchedly-repellent country that seemed fated to always cross the path of the western explorer; he directed his course to a distant range of table-topped hills and peaks. Here they found feed and water, and named the highest point Mount Kenneth, after one of the party, Mr. Kenneth Brown. From thence to the north-east they traversed stony plains, broken by sandstone and ironstone ridges, and intersected by the dry beds of sandy watercourses; and in this country, one of the worst possible misfortunes happened to them. Their horses got on to a patch of poison plant, and nearly the whole of them were laid up in consequence, and unfit for work. Some few escaped, but the greater number never recovered the effects of the weed, and many died. Pushing hastily on to a safer place to recruit, Austin found himself so crippled by this accident, that he had to abandon all but his most necessary stores for no less than fourteen of the horses having succumbed. They now turned north-west to make for Shark's Bay, where a vessel was to be sent to render them assistance or bring them away, as should be desired. Their course to Shark's Bay led them over country that offered them no temptation to linger on the way. On the 21st September they found a cave in the face of a cliff, in which were drawings similar to those seen by Gray near the Prince Regent's River. Near this cave was a spring, and, while resting at this camp, one of the party, a young man named Charles Farmer, accidentally shot himself in the arm, and in spite of the most careful attention, the poor fellow died of lock-jaw, in terrible agony. He was buried at the cave spring camp, and the highest hill in the neighbourhood called Mount Farmer after him. Thus two lonely mountains in the desert interior watch over the graves of men who first saw them-Mount Poole and Mount Farmer. They now got on to the head waters of the Murchison, or rather the dry channels of these tributaries, and at last reached the Murchison itself; a river with a deep-cut channel, but perfectly dry. Beyond this their efforts were in vain, they fought their way to within a hundred miles of Shark's Bay, but they had then been so long without water that it was courting certain death to proceed. Even during the retreat to the Murchison the lives of the horses were only saved by the party accidentally finding a small native well in a most unexpected situation, namely, in the middle of a bare ironstone plain.