They returned in about six hours, hoping to find him at the camp, but were disappointed.  We now began to fear that our companion was lost, and poor Jackey displayed great uneasiness, fearing that he might be blamed for leaving him, and repeatedly saying that he did not wish Goddard to leave the camp at all, and that he had waited for him some time on the opposite side of the hill, where they were to meet.  Four fresh horses were saddled, and Jackey, with Mr. Kennedy, Wall, and Mitchell, were just on the point of starting to renew the search, when to our great joy we observed him at a distance, approaching the camp.  It would have been sadly discouraging to the whole party to have lost one of our companions in so wild and desolate a spot.  We made but a short stage to-day in a northerly direction, and camped by the side of a creek running west by south, which, with the last two creeks we had passed, we doubted not, from the appearance of the country, ran into the river we had crossed on the 20th instant.  The country appeared to fall considerably to the westward.  All the rivers and large creeks we had seen on this side the range (that crossed on the 10th instant) rose in or near the coast range, and appeared to run westerly across the peninsula into the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Although few of them appeared to be constantly running, yet there is an abundance of water to be found in holes and reaches of the rivers and creeks.  Where there was any scrub by the side of the creeks, it was composed principally of the climbing palm (Calamus), Glyceria, Kennedya, Mucuna, and a strong growing Ipomoea, with herbaceo-fibrous roots and palmate leaves; and in a few places bamboos were growing.

The trees were, Eugenias, Terminalias, Castanospermums, with two or three kinds of deciduous figs, bearing large bunches of yellowish fruit on the trunks.  Although we frequently partook of these figs I found they did not agree with us; three or four of the party who frequently ate a great quantity, although advised not to do so, suffered severely from pain in the head and swelling of the eyes.  The forest trees on the ironstone ridges were stringy-bark, and on the grassy hills box, Moreton Bay ash, and a tree belonging to the natural order Leguminosae, with axillary racemes of white apetalous flowers, long, broad, flat, many-seeded legumes, large, bipinnate leaves, leaflets oval, one inch long, and having dark fissured bark; on the flat stiff soil grew ironbark, apple-tree, and another species of Angophora, with long lanceolate leaves, seed vessels as large as the egg of a common fowl and a smooth yellow bark.

August 27.

This day being Sunday we had prayers at eleven o’clock.  We saved the blood of the sheep we had killed for today’s food, and having cut up the heart, liver, and kidneys, we mixed it all with a little flour and boiled it for breakfast.  By this means we made some small saving, and it was a dish that we were very fond of.  We saved all the wool that we could get from our sheep, for the purpose of stuffing our saddles, a process which was frequently required, owing to the poor condition of our horses.