Here we found a very large flock of sheep in fair condition, also a well-supplied stockyard, and cattle in beautiful order; upwards of twenty kangaroo dogs completed the establishment.
These settlers were, at the time I visited the Williams, four in number; consisting of one young man, two youths, and a little boy.

Four soldiers were quartered about sixteen miles from them, and there was no other European within fifty miles of the spot.

The distance they had to send for all stores and necessaries was one hundred and twenty miles, and this through a country untraversed by roads and where they were exposed to the hostility of the natives in the event of any ill-feeling arising on their part.
Nothing can give a more lively notion of the difficulties and privations undergone by first settlers than the fact that, when I left this hut, they had no flour, tea, sugar, meat, or any provision whatever except their livestock and the milk of the cattle, their sole dependence for any other article of food being the kangaroo dogs, and the only thing I was able to do in order to better their situation was to leave them some shot.
All other circumstances connected with their position were on the same scale.

They had but one knife, an old clasp one; there was but one small bed for one person, the others sleeping on the ground every night, with little or no covering; they had no soap to wash themselves or their clothes, yet they submitted cheerfully to all these privations, considering them as necessary attendants upon their situation.

Two of these out-settlers were gentlemen, not only by birth but also in thought and manner, and, to tell the truth, I believe they were far happier than many an idle young man I have seen lounging about in England, a burden to himself and his friends; for it must be borne in mind that they were realizing a future independence for themselves.
THEIR PRIVATIONS.
Many of the ills and privations which they endured were however unnecessary, and were entailed upon them by the mistaken system that has been pursued at Swan River of spreading to the utmost their limited population.