I left the observation spot for this purpose with the first grey of the morn, taking an East-North-East direction for about four miles.
DREARY COUNTRY.
The country was most dreary; vast ranges strewn over with huge blocks of sandstone, rose in desolate grandeur around; chasms, ravines, and thirsty stony valleys yawned on every side; all was broken, rugged, and arid, as if the curse of sterility had fallen on the land; in short, the contrast was complete between this desert place and the country we had so lately traversed up the river.

I was able, accordingly, to procure nothing in the shape of a fresh meal, save a few black cockatoos and some of the pigeons of a dark brown colour, with a white patch on the extremity of the wing, which I have alluded to in the earlier part of the work relating to King's Sound, as always inhabiting rocky districts and making a whirring sound, like a partridge, on the wing.
LOSE TWO ANCHORS.
November 29.
This afternoon and the whole of the next day, when the tide suited, we were endeavouring to weigh the ship's anchors; but they were together with the cables so imbedded in the bottom, which must have been a quicksand, that this proved impossible.

Had the ship been fitted with Captain Charles Phillips', R.N., capstan, there would have been a better chance of succeeding.

As it was, after heaving down the ship nineteen inches by the head, and splitting the hawse pipes, we were ultimately obliged to leave both behind, and thirty fathoms of cable with one and fifteen with the other.

This circumstance suggested the appropriate name of Holdfast Reach for this locality; and perhaps in some future generations, when this part of the world has undergone the changes that seems destined for it, the archaeologist of Victoria River may in vain puzzle his wits with speculations concerning the Beagle's anchors.
Whilst at this anchorage, just after dark, flocks of whistling ducks were constantly heard passing over our heads in a South-West by West direction, or towards the head of Cambridge Gulf, which led to the supposition that there was a river in that neighbourhood.