FIRST HILLS SEEN. 
33 
obtained water, which though brackish was very 
palatable. This was very extraordinary, considering 
the nature of the position we were in, and that there 
were not any hills from which the fresh water could 
drain. 
The night was again bitterly cold and frosty, and 
we suffered severely. Now the winter had set in, 
and we were sadly unprepared to meet its incle- 
mency, the cold at nights became so intense as to 
occasion me agonies of pain ; and the poor native 
was in the same predicament. 
May 11. — Upon moving away this morning, I 
kept behind the sea shore along the borders of the 
salt swamp, steering for some sand-hills which 
were seen a-head of us. A hill was now visible in 
the distance, a little south of west, rising above the 
level bank behind the shore, — this was the first hill, 
properly so called, that we had met with for many 
hundreds of miles, and it tended not a little to cheer 
us and confirm all previous impressions relative to the 
change and improvement in the character of the 
country. Our horses were dreadfully fatigued and 
moved along with difficulty, and it was as much as 
we could do to reach the sand-hills we had seen, 
though only seven miles away. In our approach to 
them we passed through a fine plain full of grass, and 
of a much better description than we had met with 
since leaving Fowler’s Bay. Not only was it long 
and in the greatest abundance, but there were also 
mixed with the old grass many stalks of new and 
VOL. II. 
D 
