4^8 STRZELECKI. 



of this important and valuable district, which he 

 named in honour of His Excellency the Governor, 

 I called the summit of a woody range 2110 feet 

 high, over the north shore of Corner Inlet, Mount 

 Fatigue.* The only vegetation this part of the 

 promontory supports is a wiry grass, stunted gums 

 and banksias in the valleys, and a few grass -trees 

 near the crests of the hills which are generally 

 bare masses of granite. Behind a sandy beach on 

 the east side beneath where I stood were sinuous 

 lines of low sand-hills, remarkable for their regu- 



* It was in the rear of tliis range that Count Strzelecki and 

 his companions, on their way to Western Port, experienced the 

 sufferings related in the Port Phillip Herald, June, 1840, from 

 which I extract the following: — " The party was now in a most 

 deplorable condition. Messrs. MacArthur and Riley and their 

 attendants had become so exhausted as to be unable to cope with 

 the difficulties which beset their progress. The Count, being 

 more inured to the fatigues and privations attendant upon a pe- 

 destrian journey through the wilds of our inhospitable interior, 

 alone retained possession of his strength, and although burdened 

 with a load of instruments and papers of forty-five pounds 

 weight, continued to pioneer his exhausted companions day after 

 day throughanalmostimpervious tea-tree scrub, closely interwoven 

 with climbing grasses, vines, willows, fern and reeds. Here the 

 Count was to be seen breaking a passage with his hands and 

 knees through the centre of the scrub ; there throwing himself 

 at full length among the dense underwood, and thus opening by 

 the weight of his body a pathway for his companions in 

 distress. Thus the party inch by inch forced their way ; the 

 incessant rains preventing them from taking rest by night or 

 day. Their provisions, during the last eighteen days of their 

 journey, consisted of a very scanty supply of the flesh of the 

 native bear or monkey, but for which, the only game the country 

 aftbrded, the travellers must have perished from uttor starva 



