APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY ON THE MURRUMBIDGEE.

We had arrived on the Murrumbidgee seventy-five miles below the point where that river quitted the settled districts and ceased to form a county boundary.  I found the upper portion of this fine stream fully occupied as cattle-stations, which indeed extended also, as I was informed, much lower down the river; and such was the thoroughfare in that direction that I found a tolerable cart road from one station to another.  I passed the night at the house of a stockman in charge of the cattle of Mr. James Macarthur, and I was very comfortably lodged.

October 28.

With the Murrumbidgee still occasionally in view we pursued the road which led towards Sydney.  Each meadow was already covered with the lowing herds for which it seemed to have been prepared; and the traces of man’s industry were now obvious in fences, and in a substantial wooden house and smoking chimney, usually built in the most inviting part of each cattle run.  All the animals looked fat and sufficiently proved the value of the pasturage along this river.  Steep and rugged ridges occasionally approached its banks and, in following the beaten track, I this day crossed acclivities much more difficult for the passage of wheel-carriages than any we had traversed throughout those uncultivated wastes, where even the pastoral age had not commenced.

The scenery at various points of the river seen this day was very beautiful; its chief features consisting of noble sheets of water, umbrageous woods, flowery meadows, enlivened by those objects so essential to the harmony of landscape, cattle of every hue.

The gigantic and luxuriant growth of the yarra eucalyptus everywhere produced fine effects; and one tree in particular pleased me so much that I was tempted to draw it, although the shades of evening would scarcely permit; but while thus engaged I sent my servant forward to look for some hut or station that I might remain the longer to complete my drawing.

JUGION CREEK.

I arrived long after dark at a cattle-station occupied by a superintendent of Mr. Henry O’Brian, near Jugion Creek on the right bank of the Murrumbidgee, and there passed the night.  Two considerable rivers join this creek from the mountainous but fine country to the southward, one being named the Coodradigbee, the other the Doomot.  The higher country there is granitic although, on both rivers, limestone also abounds in which the corals seem to belong to Mr. Murchison’s Silurian system.  Favosites, Stromatopora concentrica, Heliopora pyriformis, and stems of crinoidea are found loosely about the surface.  There is also a large rock of haematite under Mount Jellula.

BRUNONIA ABUNDANT.

October 29.

The road led us this day over some hilly country of a rather poor description, but the beautiful flower Brunonia grew so abundantly that the surface exhibited the unusual and delicate tint of ultramarine blue.  I was tempted once more to forsake the road in order to ascend a range which it crossed in hopes of being able to see, from some lofty summit thereof, points of the country I had left, and thus to connect them by means of my pocket sextant with any visible points I might recognise of my former trigonometrical survey.  It was not however in my power to do this satisfactorily, not having been able to distinguish any of the latter.