THi: INTERIOR OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 379 



ing winds, that vegetation fails in its struggles to maintain even a 

 scanty existence upon them. Here the process was going forwai'd in 

 full force, and the sand-hillocks undergoing a rapid change of position 

 by the force of a strong S.E. wind. The entire " sand-patch" was in 

 motion, and envelope^ in a thick cloud of sand, moving along with as 

 much facility as smoke, and gaining only fresh impetus by the perpen- 

 dicular resistance it frequently encountered. To move at all amongst 

 these animated sand-heaps with our loaded horses, seemed at first a 

 proceeding of rather doubtful issue, on account of fancied quicksands ; 

 but on Bob*s assurance it was a safe road, always used by the black 

 fellows to avoid the adjoining rocky, scrubby country, we advanced 

 into it, and found the footing tolerably firm throughout its whole ex- 

 tent of three or four miles. In that space our route sometimes lay 

 over broad sheets of white limestone-rock, of that peculiar oolitic for- 

 mation which embraces the appearance of large roots of trees, and 

 amongst these rocks would occasionally appear one solitary plant, or 

 bush, struggling for existence against the overwhelming sands. Thus 

 had evidently all the adjoining land been formed, and the process 

 seemed in rapid continuation. 



While traversing that part of this dreary waste which borders on the 

 searcoast, we came suddenly upon the skeleton of a human being, re- 

 posing upon a broad limestone sheet, about 300 yards behind the 

 beach. Our native immediately explained they were the remains of 

 one of three seamen who had quitted a Hobart Town whaler, some 

 eighteen months ago, in the vicinity of Middle Island, for the purpose 

 of walking into Albany, — a distance which they could scarcely have 

 rightly understood was fully 350 miles at the shortest. Why these 

 men quitted, or were suffered to quit, their ship thus, on so inhospita- 

 ble a coast, it is unnecessary here to remark on. The only survivor of 

 the three, who was recently in the employ of Mr. Cheyne, at Cape 

 Eiche, declared they were landed with their own consent, supplied by 

 the captain with as much provisions as they chose to carry, as also a 

 musket and ammunition amongst them; that, after a long ramble, they 

 became much distressed for fresh water, and at length separated to 

 search for it more inland, agreeing to rendezvous at a certain hill, then 

 in sight in advance, but that they never did so rejoin or see each other, 

 and that he alone survived the fearful journey. The natives seemed to 

 have been fully aware of the death of the other two, and ascribe it to 



