As we proceeded beyond the Goobang, chiefly in a north-west direction, we found the country tolerably level and to consist of what in the colony is termed open forest land.  We crossed one or two eminences, but the carts met with no impediment in a journey of fifteen miles.

The principal hill consisted of traprock, and was so naked that only one or two trees of the Sterculia heterophylla grew upon it.  The native name for it was Pakormungor, and from its top I recognised Mounts Juson and Laidley, and near me various low features which I had intersected from those stations.  The rock, in other places less elevated, consisted of schist or slate in laminae, dipping to the east at an angle of 60 degrees.  Some very rich ironstone also occurred on the surface.

THE DOGS KILL THREE LARGE KANGAROOS.

This day three large kangaroos were killed by our dogs, one of them having been speared very adroitly during the chase by a native who accompanied us from our last encampment.

From Pakormungor the country began to decline to the northward and, as we descended into the basin of the Bogan, it improved in grass.  The Acacia pendula occurring here reminded me of the banks of the Namoi; and Mr. Cunningham had a busy day in examining many interesting plants which he had not previously seen on this journey.

We at length encamped on a lagoon to which the natives led us, and which they named Cookopie.

WILD HONEY BROUGHT BY THE NATIVES.

We were now in a land flowing with honey, for our friendly guides, with their new tomahawks, extracted it in abundance from the hollow branches of the trees, and it seemed that, in the proper season, they could find it almost everywhere.  To such inexpert clowns, as they probably thought us, the honey and the bees were inaccessible, and indeed invisible, save only when the natives cut the former out, and brought it to us in little sheets of bark, thus displaying a degree of ingenuity and skill in supplying wants which we, with all our science, could not hope to attain.  Their plan was to catch a bee, and attach to it, with some resin or gum, the light down of a swan or owl; thus laden the bee would make for its nest in the branch of some lofty tree, and so betray its store of sweets to its keen-eyed pursuers, whose bee-chase presented, indeed, a laughable scene.

April 14.

We continued in a west or south-west direction, passing Goonigal,* a large plain on our right, near which there was a fine tract of open forest land.  The ground afterwards rose in gentle undulations, and was covered with kangaroo grass;** the soil changing also from clay to a red sandy loam.

(Footnote.  This we found afterwards to be the native term for any plain.)

(**Footnote.  Anthisteria australis.)

We next arrived at a creek, or chain of deep ponds, called Coogoorderoy, which appeared to come from the south-south-west.  Further on we passed plains on our left of the same name; and at length we crossed a fine one, the native name of which was Turangenoo.  On the skirt of it was a hill named Boorr, which we kept close on our left, crossing its lower extremities, which were covered with a forest of ironbark eucalyptus, and forest oaks or casuarinae.