ARRIVAL IN THE DARK, ON THE BANK OF A WATERCOURSE.

Before I reached the spot and while far ahead of the party darkness had overtaken us; but I found there a deep creek with some water in large ponds; and by lighting a fire the carts at length came up to us, after a journey of nineteen miles.  This seemed by moonlight such a singular place that I was anxious for daylight to see at what we had arrived.

June 24.

I expected to find the main stream not far from the ponds, but the morning light shone over a plain which extended in a north-western direction to the very horizon.  It was bounded on the north by very distant trees which had not the usual appearance of trees distinguishing the river.  The country on all sides seemed perfectly level, and if there was any exception at all it was in the box forests to the southward whence we had come, and where the land seemed lower than the plain on which we had encamped.  The bed of the creek was full twenty feet below the general surface.  The symmetry of the curves described by it was remarkable, and it was rendered still more striking by a narrow line of rushes which had grown on the margin of the water when it had stood at a much higher level.

DEAD SAPLINGS OF TEN YEARS GROWTH IN THE PONDS.

A concentric border of grass of uniform breadth grew on the slope above the rushes, and one of fragrant herbs below the line of rushes, all being at nearly equal distances; while a single row of bare poles measuring from three to five inches in diameter stood where a row of saplings had grown in what had, at one time, been the very centre of the stream.  These poles were the remains of yarra trees eight or ten years old, and marked the extent doubtless of a long period of drought which had continued until some high flood killed them.

DISCOVERY OF MOUNT HOPE.

The grass was excellent over the whole of the plains on both sides and, from a tree near the camp, Burnett descried a goodly hill bearing 36 1/2 degrees East of South and distant, as afterwards ascertained, twenty-two miles.

Near our camp we found some recent fireplaces of the natives, from which they must have hastily escaped on our approach for, in the branches of a tree, they had left their net bags containing the stalks of a vegetable that had apparently undergone some culinary process, which gave them the appearance of having been half boiled.  Vegetables are thus cooked, I was told, by placing the root or plant between layers of hot embers until it is heated and softened.  The stalks found in the bag resembled those of the potato, and they could only be chewed, such food being neither nutritious nor palatable for it tasted only of smoke.* A very large ash-hill, raised no doubt by repeated use in such simple culinary operations, and probably during the course of a great many years, was close to our camp.  On its ample surface were just visible the vestiges of a very ancient grave, once encompassed by exactly the same kind of ridges that I had observed around the inhabited tomb near the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee.  The natives were at length seen about two miles off on the skirts of the wood; and although I sent forward the overseer and Piper, each carrying a large green bough, they all ran away, leaving behind them their spears and skin cloaks.