ROCKS OF NUNDEWAR.

The soil was mixed with pebbles of vesicular trap, probably amygdaloid with the kernels decomposed, and containing particles of olivine.  There were also pebbles of a quartzose conglomerate, and others of decomposed porphyry, the base consisting of granular felspar, with crystals of common felspar.  It is not improbable that good millstones might be obtained from the range of Nundewar.  The grass was fortunately much better here than at the last camp.

February 20.

During the night a heavy thunderstorm broke over us, and was accompanied by so much rain that the ground was too soft in the morning for us to proceed.  I accordingly halted till one o’clock.  We then succeeded in crossing the brook immediately above our encampment, and continued, first southward to avoid a scrub, and then almost east.  On a portion of open ground the progress of the party was slow enough, but in an open kind of scrub, where I hoped to have got on better, the ground proved to be still less favourable, for water lay in hollows which at any season might have been soft and were then impassable.  The cattle at length could draw no longer, the carts sinking to the axles; by attaching a double team however and drawing each cart successively forward to our intended camp, we effected the transit of the whole by sunset, and fixed our home for the night on a hard bank of gravel beside Meadow Ponds, and to my no small satisfaction, on the line of our former track.  We had travelled five miles only, but to hit this point, which was exactly at an angle of that route, was a desideratum with me, and we had now before us a line of marked trees leading homewards, and relieving me from all further anxiety as to the line to be pursued.

The ponds were now united by a stream of beautifully clear water, and were so far different from those we had left that morning in which the water had a clayey or muddy colour.  During this day’s journey we killed a snake measuring seven feet in length and eight inches in diameter; and the fat of this reptile was considered a useful addition to a dish at dinner.  In the watercourse we found pebbles similar to those at the last camp.

February 21.

Proceeding at an early hour we now traversed, with satisfaction, the scrub through which, during very hot weather, we had formerly been obliged to cut our way.  The ground beyond it was soft, and the labour distressing to our jaded cattle.  About three P.M. we encamped on a rising ground where some water, which had fallen during the late rains, had lodged in hollows, in sufficient abundance to satisfy our wants.  In respect to this essential article, indeed, the late rains had supplied enough to leave me more at liberty in the choice of camps.  From the site selected here the view of the mountains to the eastward was rather fine, especially as the ground sloped towards them.  Behind us on the west was a dense scrub; not the most pleasant of neighbours when savage natives were about.