148 JOURNEY OF DISCOVEKY INTO 



would overcome. During our stay at the camp the weather was too 

 cloudy to admit of my obtaining any astronomical observations beyond 

 what enabled me to ascertain that the variation was only 0° 12' W. 

 Mosquitoes and large biting flies were exceedingly abundant and 

 troublesome. 



On the 5th we gladly moved westward once more, the horses much 

 recruited by the respite they had been afforded, and by the attention 

 we had been enabled to bestow on their sore backs. 



No material alteration took place in the face of the country. It 

 continued nearly level, but with slight undulations or low limestone 

 ridges, amongst which were many small fresh lakes, with occasional 

 small clumps of yeit, affording good grass and water. 



On the 7th we were abreast of Esperance Bay, and encamped at 

 the foot of a high granite hill, fifteen miles north from Cape le Grand, 

 from the summit of which a crowd of lofty granite islands and rocks 

 were observed to rise abruptly out of the sea, together with some co- 

 vered rocks and reefs, which will render great caution necessary on the 

 part of vessels frequenting the Bay. The shore of the latter is sandy 

 for several miles back, and numerous lakes, apparently salt, were ob- 

 served to lie behind its northern beach. Around our camp were many 

 huts and recent fireplaces of the natives ; and large smokes were curling 

 up three or four miles to the westward, showing the country to be 

 somewhat better peopled. This hill, being a very remarkable object 

 at a distance of nearly forty miles, I named Mount Merivale, after 

 one of the Under-Secretaries of State for the Colonies ; and a similar 

 hill fifteen miles to the eastward. Mount Hawes. While taking a 

 round of angles from the summit of the former, Mr. Eidley, who was 

 breaking off samples of the rock, discovered in one of a very white for- 

 mation, some remarkable veins and streaks of a light blue colour, 

 which led to further examination, and to our quarrying to as great a 

 depth as we could penetrate with the best tools in our possession. All 

 our sanguine hopes of copper however fell to the ground, by finding, 

 on our return to the camp, that the best specimens would not respond 

 to the established tests. 



To the west of Mount Merivale we crossed several streams of 



brackish water, running in shallow channels, from one to twenty yards 

 wide, towards the lakes behind Esperance Bay. These were the first 

 watercourses we had met with for four hundred miles; the surface- 



