Our hands were in constant requisition to keep the tormentors from the face and ears, which often received a hearty whack, aimed in the fruitless irritation of the moment at our assailants, and which sometimes ended in adding headache to the list of annoyances.  Strike as you please, the ceaseless humming of the invincible mosquito close to your ear seems to mock his unhappy victim!

One poor fellow, whose patience was quite exhausted, fairly jumped into the river to escape further persecution.

We had the wind from South-West to South-East during the afternoon, but at 6 P.M. it veered round to North-North-West.

While getting the observations for time and latitude, some of us were compelled to remain quiet, an opportunity our tiny assailants instantly availed themselves of, covering our faces and hands.  To listen quietly to their hum, and feel their long stings darting into your flesh, might put the patience of Job himself to a severe trial.

ASCENT OF THE FITZROY.

March 10.

After such a night of torment, we hailed the morning with delight; and having partaken of an early breakfast, proceeded on our interesting discovery.  The first reach took us more than a mile, in a South-West by West direction, the width of it being towards the latter end nearly a quarter of a mile; the deepest water (from seven to eight feet) was on the west side, and a dry flat of sand fronted the other for some distance.  The course of the river now changed, first to South-East then round to West-North-West enclosing a mile of ground.  We had great difficulty, owing to the water being very shoal, in getting our boats through the next reach, which was rather more than a mile in a West by South direction.  After threading our way through three more reaches, trending South-South-West—­South-West, and South and from half to one mile in length, the shades of evening and fatigue attending a long and unsatisfactory day’s work, warned us that it was time to seek a resting-place for the night, although we had but little hopes of obtaining any.  We had made good but six miles during the day in a general South-West by West direction.  Our progress being delayed by the difficulty we had in getting the boats over the shallows, and by a current running at the rate of from one to two miles an hour.

The depth of the river varied during the day from one to fourteen feet, and its width from three to five hundred yards.  In the deep reaches were the wrecks of large trees, rearing their decayed heads, in evidence of the resistless fury of the torrent that had torn them from their roots, during some vast inundation, traces of which still remain on the banks, many feet above the present level of the river.