During the time that Oxley, Sturt, and Hume had been tracing out and painfully discovering the watershed of the Murray, a settlement had been formed at King George's Sound, in Western Australia, and some slight attempts at exploration made, but of inconsiderable extent. The settlement was entrusted to Major Lockyer, who was succeeded by Captain Barker, destined to meet a violent death at the mouth of the Murray. In 1828, Captain Stirling, in the SUCCESS, visited the coast, and made a close examination of the Swan River. He was accompanied by Frazer the botanist, who had now been present at the opening of a great deal of new country. Stirling's report was a favourable one, and the Home Government determined to form a free colony there. In 1831, we find a communication to the Colonial Government, notifying that the ISABELLA be dispatched to Hobart Town, to bring up a detachment of the 63rd regiment to relieve those of the 39th, at King George's Sound. Also, directing the withdrawal from the present settlement of both prisoners and troops. Stirling was then appointed Lieutenant-Governor, and to induce immigration and settlement, the colonists were promised land in proportion to the capital they brought into the country, and for every labourer they brought out they received two hundred acres of land additional. At first, the prospects of this new colony seemed most hopeful, exploration was pushed out to the eastward for one hundred miles, as far as Mount Stirling, and northward for some sixty miles or so, and the country discovered gave every promise of being fitted for both pasture and agriculture. Captain Bannister made a trip in 1831 from Perth, the new settlement, to the old one of King George's Sound; and, although he made no important discoveries, he passed through fairly available country nearly the whole of the way. For some reason or other, however, a period of stagnation set in, and little more was done in the way of exploring until Lieutenant Grey took the field in 1837. In this new settlement, so entirely opposed to Port Jackson in situation, no difficulties of any magnitude were experienced in passing the coast range, as had been the great obstacle of the early explorers in New South Wales. Unfortunately, however, the comparatively lower altitude of the Darling Range led to there being no such flow of water inland as even those disappointing rivers the Macquarie and Lachlan had afforded. Consequently, exploration and the ensuing occupation were, as in the parent colony, strictly confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the township, to the Swan River, and its tributaries, the Avon and the Canning.