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soon be ready to leave it, when the entire establishment will be put upon a different footing. I went down to Fremantle with the Governor on Thursday to make enquiries about it. All the people there were engaged in looking out for two whales that were said to have been made fast.
Sir Richard Spencer, who was Government Resident at King George's Sound, has died. I believe that Lieut. Grey (the explorer) will fill his post temporarily. At the Sound there is great want of supplies. They have not had a ship there for ten months. The Champion is to be despatched there immediately. I am busy in getting up a good deal of fencing near the house here, in place of some very dilapidated-looking ditch and bank. There has been some very heavy rain in the course of the week, but the river is scarcely running even here. The pools are not near full yet at York. I expect to fallow some 12 acres of ground this summer, principally in the swamp, which I have nearly succeeded in draining. The grass on it is of a very short and thin nature, not worth the trouble of cutting. An annual crop of tall flags, of which the root is manufactured by the natives into bread, grows upon it; but I expect to make it produce a better crop than that. I had a petition to-day from a man living two miles away, that I would send my sheep to eat off his young wheat, which was growing too rank.
August 26th.—We commenced sheep-shearing to-day; they had been washed in my absence. I have got one bale ready packed. Another day would have finished the small flock which is here, but heavy rain came on yesterday, and we must wait to let the wool dry. The wool which sold for £100 in London has cost me just £51 to make it ready and sell it—i.e., all expenses. We are all in anxious expectation of a ship from England, as two ship's guns were heard on Saturday evening, and we have many conjectures. I have been making little additions to the account of the natives, which I send you. It may be amusing. Recollect, if you do not care for
