VIEW OF THE GRAMPIANS FROM THE SUMMIT.

The weather turned out better than I had expected, and from the summit of Mount Abrupt I beheld a truly sublime scene; the whole of the mountains, quite clear of clouds, the grand outline of the more distant masses blended with the sky, and forming a blue and purple background for the numerous peaks of the range on which I stood, which consisted of sharp cones and perpendicular cliffs foreshortened so as to form one grand feature only of the extensive landscape, though composing a crescent nearly 30 miles in extent:  this range being but a branch from the still more lofty masses of Mount William which crowned the whole.  Towards the coast there was less haze than usual, for I could distinguish Lady Julia Percy’s Isle which I had looked for in vain from Mount Napier, a point twenty-four miles nearer to it.  Here I could also trace the course of the stream we had crossed that morning from its sources under the eastern base of the mountains to a group of lower hills twenty-seven miles distant to the westward; which hills, named by me Dundas group, formed a most useful point in my trigonometrical survey.

LAKES.

Several extensive lakes appeared in the lowest parts adjacent; but what interested me most after I had intersected the various summits was the appearance of the country to the eastward, through which we were to find our way home.  There I saw a vast extent of open downs and could trace their undulations to where they joined a range of mountains which, judging by their outlines, appeared to be of easy access.  Our straightest way homewards passed just under a bluff head about fifty miles distant, and so far I could easily perceive a most favourable line of route by avoiding several large reedy lakes.  Between that open country and these lakes on one side and the coast on the other, a low woody ridge extended eastward; and by first gaining that I hoped we should reach the open ground in a direction which should enable us to leave all the lakes on our left.

The largest pieces of water I could see were Lake Linlithgow and its companion in the open grassy plains between the range and Mount Napier, as previously discovered from that hill.  Several small and very picturesque lakes, then as smooth as mirrors, adorned the valley immediately to the westward of the hill I was upon.  They were fringed with luxuriant shrubs so that it was really painful to me to hurry, as I was then compelled to do, past spots like these, involving in their unexplored recesses so much of novelty amidst the most romantic scenery.  The rock consisted of a finely-grained sandstone as in other parts of that mass.  The Grampians of the south consist of three ranges covering a surface which extends latitudinally 54 miles and longitudinally 20 miles.  The extreme eastern and highest summit is Mount William, in height 4,500 feet above the sea.  The northern point is Mount Zero, in latitude 36 degrees 52 minutes 35 seconds South, and the southern is Mount Sturgeon, in latitude 37 degrees 38 minutes 00 seconds.  I here again recognised the outline of the most northern and elevated range extending from Mount William to Mount Zero, but it was not so steep on the southern as on the northern side.