We had a fine view of the surrounding country from the top of a high hill, in the midst of a range over which we passed.  To the west and round to the south the country appeared to be fine undulating forest land, intersected by numerous creeks and small rivers falling considerably to the westward, as in fact all the water had been running for some days past.  Doubtless there must be plenty of water in the holes and reaches of these rivers and creeks at all seasons, but in the rainy season many of them must be deep and rapid streams, as the flood-marks on the trees were from fifteen to twenty feet high.  The river along the course of which we had been so long travelling varied in width from two hundred to eight hundred yards.  It has two, or, in some places, three distinct channels, and in the flat country through which it passes these are divided by large drooping melaleucas.

It is singular that the country here should be so destitute of game; we had seen a few wallabies and some ducks, but were seldom able to shoot any of them; we had not seen more than four or five emus altogether since we started; a few brown hawks which we occasionally shot, were almost the only addition we were enabled to make to our small ration.  To-day we got an iguana and two ducks, which with the water in which our mutton was boiled, would have made us a good pot of soup, had there been any substance in the mutton.  Even thin as it was, we were very glad to get it.  The rivers also seemed to contain but few fish, as we only caught a few of two different kinds, one of which without scales, resembled the catfish, caught near Sydney;* the other was a dark thick fish with scales.

(Footnote.  Plotosus macrocephalus.)

September 10.

Finding that the river continued running to the westward, and not as we had hoped towards Princess Charlotte’s Bay, we left it and turned in a northerly direction, travelling over very rocky ridges covered with cochlospermums and acacias, interspersed with occasional patches of open forest land, and strewed with isolated blocks of course granite containing crystals of quartz and laminae of white mica.  Prayers as usual at eleven o’clock.

We had not seen natives for several days, but this night, whilst one of the party was keeping watch, a short distance from the fire, about eleven o’clock, he heard the chattering of the blacks.  Three spears were almost immediately thrown into the camp and fell near the fire, but fortunately without injuring any of the party.  We fired a few shots in the direction from which the spears came; the night being so dark that we could not see them.  We entertained fears that some of our horses might be speared, as they were at some distance from the camp, but fortunately the blacks offered us no further molestation.

September 11 and 12.

We pursued our northern course, the ground becoming very rotten; by the sides of small creeks in sandy flats were belts of broad-leafed Melaleucas and Grevilleas.  We met with scrubs of Leptospermum, Fabricia, and Dodonaea.  By the creeks, when the ground was sandy, we saw Abrus precatorius, and a small tree about fifteen feet high, with bi-pinnate leaves, the leaflets very small, with long flat legumes containing ten or twelve black and red seeds, like those of Abrus precatorius, but rather larger.