60 
GRASS-TREE FUEL. 
nine months old, could we procure food in no other 
way. After leaving Lucky Bay, as we should only 
be about three hundred miles from the Sound, and our 
horses would be in comparatively fresh condition, 
I anticipated we should be able to progress more 
rapidly. Indeed I fully expected it would be abso- 
lutely necessary for us to do so, through a region 
which, from Flinders’ description as seen from sea, 
and from his having named three different hills in it 
Mount Barrens, we should find neither very practi- 
cable nor fertile. 
Six miles beyond the fresh -water lake we came to 
another salt-water stream, and finding, upon follow- 
ing up a little way, that it was only brackish, we 
crossed and halted for the night. Wylie went out 
to search for food, but got nothing, whilst I un- 
harnessed and attended to the horses, which were a 
good deal fagged, and then prepared the camp and 
made the fires for the night : I could get nothing 
but grass -tree for this purpose, but it was both 
abundant and dry. Owing to its very resinous 
nature, this tree burns with great heat and brilliancy, 
emitting a grateful aromatic odour. It is easily lit 
up, makes a most cheerful fire, and notwithstanding 
the fervency with which it burns, does not often re- 
quire renewing, if the tree be large. Our whole 
journey to-day had been over undulations of about 
three hundred feet in elevation ; the country rose a 
little inland, and a few occasional bluffs of granite 
were observed in the distance, but no timber was 
