(Footnote.  I strongly recommend this ingenious invention to every seaman.  In foggy weather it will save hours of anxiety, and may often prevent the horrors of shipwreck.)

The saltwater arm of the Adelaide we found had another branch, which took us eight miles in a South-West direction, terminating like the other, and at low-water being a mere ditch.  There was nothing picturesque in following the windings of these creeks or inlets; a tall growth of mangroves with their stems immersed, rendering the view limited and wearisome.  We, however, were urged on by hope, being in momentary expectation that each turn would bring some change, while to add to the zest of our proceedings we felt ourselves to be the first Europeans who had traversed these parts.

Now and then the deep stillness of nature would be broken by the mournful cry of a curlew, disturbed by the splash of the oars, while sometimes a heavy flapping of wings was heard amid the mangroves, and out would start suddenly three or four white ibises with black necks, giving utterance to a peculiar cry, which faintly resembles that of the male guinea fowl.  All else was deep unbroken silence.

By evening we had again reached the entrance of the river, where we passed the night, during which there was a very heavy dew.

August 5.

The lower part of the Adelaide having been already explored, prevented us from experiencing that depth of interest which we should otherwise have felt; still we were destined to enjoy our share of pleasurable sensations, as on the result of our examination depended the important fact of whether the river was navigable for large vessels.  We therefore started to settle this momentous question, even before the eastern sky was tinted with orange from the rising of the sun, which in these latitudes gives no glimmering twilight:  day fading and appearing instantaneously, the rapidity of the change presenting a remarkable effect.

EXTENSIVE REACHES.

Passing a narrow part, formed by two low red cliffy projections, we entered a wide reach that had an extensive flat of 2 and 2 1/2 fathoms water on the south side.  The next was similarly circumstanced, the shoal water of the same depth, being, however, on the west side.  Still in both there was a 3-fathom channel at low-water, and in the reaches above, seven in number, trending in a general South-South-East direction, about twice that depth.  This imparted to our discoveries the stamp of utility, and as Captain Wickham found it navigable for thirty miles higher up where the water is fresh, we may pronounce the Adelaide the deepest river in Australia.

MEET A CANOE.

Proceeding upwards, we met a party of natives about seven miles from the mouth, in a very pretty bark canoe, fifteen feet long, and about two deep.  The bark was sewn together with much neatness, and it was altogether the most artistic piece of workmanship I had seen among the Aborigines of Australia.  It was the last of that description we met with in this direction, for we did not find canoes in use with the natives to the westward of Clarence Strait, but only rafts, a fact alluded to in an earlier portion of the work.