Having chosen for a general line of route the bearing most likely to avoid the swamps according to the knowledge I had gained of the country, I proceeded as these and the soft ground permitted, and had the singular and indeed unexpected good fortune to come upon my horse’s track from Mount Napier without having even seen the large swamp.  The boat-carriage now travelled with the light carts, and we at length reached the first running stream at a short distance below where I had previously crossed it.  The bottom was boggy and the water flowed in two channels, the ground between them being very soft.  The whole party crossed it, with the exception of two carts which did not arrive, and we encamped on the bank beyond after a journey of about eight miles.  Near this stream we found a pretty new species of Dillwynia, with plain yellow flowers, clustered on a long stalk at the end of the branches, and with curiously hairy heath-like leaves.  It resembles D. peduncularis but proved, on examination, to be distinct.*

(Footnote.  D. hispida, Lindley manuscripts; ramulis hispidulis, foliis linearibus patulis verrucosis obtusis hispidulis, corymbis longe pedunculatis terminalibus laxis paucifloris, pedunculo glaberrimo, pedicellis calycibusque pubescentibus.)

At this spot we found a very small bower of twigs, only large enough to contain a child:  the floor was hollowed out and filled with dry leaves and feathers; and the ground around had been cut smooth, several boughs having been also bent over it so as to be fixed in the ground at both ends.  The whole seemed connected with some mystic ceremony of the aborigines, but which the male natives who were with us could not explain.  The gins however on being questioned said it was usual to prepare such a bower for the reception of a new-born child.  Kangaroos were more numerous in this part of the country than in any other that we had traversed.  I counted twenty-three in one flock which passed before me as I stood silently by a tree.  Two of the men counted fifty-seven in another flock, and it was not unusual for them to approach our camp as if from curiosity, on which occasions two or three were occasionally caught by our dogs.

September 8.

The remainder of the heavy carts not having come up, I left the two with us to await their arrival that the men might assist the drivers with their teams in crossing this stream.  On proceeding then with the light carts only I crossed several soft bad places, and one or two fine small rivulets, encamping at last where we again fell in with my horse’s track, on an open space about eight miles from Mount Napier.  During the day’s journey we traversed some fine open forest hills near the banks of rivulets.  We generally found the south-eastern slope of such heights very indistinct, and the ground soft, boggy and covered with banksias.  The rock in such places consisted of the same cellular trap so common on this side of the Grampians.  Our camp lay between two