and this rivulet at length entered a still deeper valley in which there was very little wood, the hills on the opposite side being uncommonly level at the top.  In this valley a fine stream ran northward, being undoubtedly the Barnard, or first river crossed by us on our way to Mount Macedon.  We succeeded in finding a ford, but although it was deep a greater difficulty to be overcome was the descent of our carts to it, so abrupt and steep-sided was the ravine in which the Barnard flowed.

WATERFALL OF COBAW.

When we had effected at length a descent and a passage across, having also established our camp beyond this stream, I rode up the bank towards a noise of falling water, and thus came to a very fine cascade of upwards of sixty feet.  The river indeed fell more than double that height, but in the lower part the water escaped unseen, flowing amongst large blocks of granite.  I had visited several waterfalls in Scotland, but this was certainly the most picturesque I had witnessed; although the effect was not so much in the body of water falling, or the loud noise, as in the bold character of the rocks over and amongst which it fell.  Their colour and shape were harmonized into a more complete scene than nature usually presents, resembling the finished subject of an artist, foreground and all.  The prevailing hues were light red and purple-grey, the rocks being finely interlaced with a small-leaved creeper of the brightest green.  A dark-coloured moss, which presents a warm green in the sun, covered the lower masses and relieved and supported the brighter hues, while a brilliant iris shone steadily in the spray, and blended into perfect harmony the lighter hues of the higher rocks and the whiteness of the torrent rushing over them.  The banks of this stream were of so bold a character that in all probability other picturesque scenery, perhaps finer than this, may yet be found upon it.

SINGULAR COUNTRY ON THE BARNARD.

The geological character of the adjacent country was sufficiently striking—­the left bank consisted of undulating hills and bold rocks of granite; the right of trap-rock in the higher part, and presented a remarkable contrast to the other, from the perfectly level character of the summits of adjacent hills, as if the whole had been once in a fluid state.  Some of these table hills were separated by dry grassy vales of excellent soil.  Further back the rugged crests of a wooded range of a different formation rendered the level character of this ancient lava or vesicular trap more obvious.  The hills behind consisted in the higher parts of a felspathic conglomerate and clay-slate dipping to the eastward.

The country looked fine to the south and also northward, or down the stream.  By keeping along a winding valley we ascended without inconvenience between these curiously scarped trap hills.

October 5.

We found the trees on the low range much broken like those near Mount Macedon, and the ground strewed here also with withering boughs, the result apparently of the same storm, the destructive effects of which we had noticed on the trees there.