Our route was that of yesterday to View Hill, and we reached the river a mile to the eastward by half-past seven A.M.  We halted here for ten minutes to skin a kangaroo, which I had shot as we crossed the plain; a piece of good fortune that induced me to determine upon leaving a part of our provisions at the first convenient spot.  We found the banks of the river thickly clothed with tall reeds, through which with some difficulty we forced our way.  To the north-west the high land receded from the river, having an extensive, and apparently alluvial flat between its base and the course of the stream.

After a brief halt, we proceeded in an East 16 degrees South direction.  Two miles good walking brought us to the head of a deep gully, the banks of which were covered with tall reeds; we followed its course nearly due north to the river, which it joined near the foot of the high land I have before spoken of.  The bed of the stream was dry here in patches for half a mile.  As none of our party had been recently accustomed to much pedestrian exercise, and we had been travelling for nearly five hours over a broken country, and in a temperature varying from 87 to 100 degrees in the shade, I thought it time to halt and dine.  While dinner was being prepared, Mr. Bynoe and myself shot three brace of rare ducks, of a small light grey kind, in the pools near.  I afterwards accompanied Mr. Forsyth to get some bearings from an elevation on the north side of the river.

Course of the Victoria.

Towards the south-east we perceived a very decided break in the hills, through which I hoped to trace the course of the Victoria, that being the direction of the centre of this vast continent:  in this however we were disappointed, for the river turned short round to the north-east.  The banks were so high, and so thickly covered with tall reeds, that it was only by the very green appearance of the trees about its banks that its course could be made out.  The temperature at one P.M. in the sun was 127 degrees.  Knowing how impossible it was to avoid being tracked by the natives, should they wish it, even upon the hardest ground, and that in the event of their doing so any buried stores would be forthwith discovered, and yet anxious to disencumber the party of any superfluous load, I directed one of the men to take the 8-pound canister of preserved meat and throw it into a thick cluster of reeds and palms, about thirty yards distant; and after taking a set of sights for longitude, recommenced our journey to half-past three P.M. in a north-east direction; passing through a lightly timbered plain, that had been evidently at no distant date exposed to the ravages of fire.  At half-past four we came to a bend of the river, trending North 56 degrees East and South 22 degrees West.  Passing several trees still on fire near the river, after another short halt, which the state of the atmosphere no less than the nature of the ground rendered desirable, we resumed our north-east course, but were compelled to make a considerable westerly detour, in order to clear the deep watercourses intersecting the banks at this place, and which, extending nearly to the base of the hills, rendered the fatigues and labours of the march additionally and needlessly heavy.