THE INTERIOR OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 149 
followed throughout the journey whenever circumstances permitted, and 
next morning, having discharged our natives, we proceeded along the 
post-road towards Bunbury. The route lay amongst rocky forest hills, 
and both grass and water were in sufficient quantities for supplying our 
wants; but notwithstanding this, our horses continually cropped from 
many bushes on their way, and from none more eagerly than the poi- 
sonous plants which are so fatal to cattle and sheep. Our previous 
belief that horses could partake of these plants with impunity had now 
to be corrected, for after crossing the Blackwood at twenty-four miles 
from Kojonup, winding through hilly country, nearly all of them showed 
such alarming symptoms of weakness and lethargy that, on the morning 
of the 24th, I was glad to find a suitable place at which to halt them 
for the remainder of the day, three or four miles after we had com- 
menced our day’s journey. They were fortunately somewhat relieved 
by the short respite this afforded them, but it was not without some 
difficulty they were got on another stage of sixteen miles next day, to 
a branch of the Collie River, at this time in fresh pools, in latitude 
33° 34’ 25" S. 
At twelve miles from the Blackwood River, the white gum and ma- 
hogany forests began to show some very good timber of the latter de- 
scription, and it increased both in quantity and quality as we proceeded - 
north-westward, improving as the white gum became replaced by red, 
and the trees grew closer, straighter, and better able to resist the per- 
nicious effects of the periodical bush fires. 5 
On the 26th we passed about twenty miles N.W. by W., to la- 
titude 33? 27' 39" S., through forests of the finest timber that could be 
desired for naval and ordnance purposes; the splendid straight maho- 
gany or jarrale trees growing within three or six feet of each other, 
reaching the height of fifty and eighty feet without a branch or blemish, 
and apparently quite sound. The red gum is equally perfect, although 
not so good for naval purposes as the jarrale, on account of its nume- - 
rous gum-veins, which would appear to weaken the timber in the solid 
mass, and to render it unfit for any purpose requiring the exclusion o 
water. It is nevertheless highly prized by the Colonists for various 
purposes about a farm, and would apparently answer well for ships' 
beams, being of immense size, very hard, tough, and straight. It is - 
however more subject to decay than the jarrale, which in its sound - 
state, and free from sap, is not even assailable by those formidable and 
