YASS PLAINS.

Towards evening I drew near Yass Plains and was not a little struck with their insignificance as compared with those of the south.  A township had been marked out here, and the comfortable establishments of various wealthy colonists evinced, by their preference of these plains, that they considered them the best part of a very extensive district.

THE GAP, AN INN.

Mr. Cornelius O’Brien had invited me to his house and afterwards furnished me with a supply of provisions for my party; but I carried my own despatches, and a much shorter route led to the left by which I could divide the way better in continuing my ride to the Gap, a small inn where I arrived at a very late hour, the road having been soft, uneven, and wholly through a dreary wood.

The noise and bustle of the house was quite refreshing to one who had dwelt so long in deserts, although it seemed to promise little accommodation, for there had been races in the neighbourhood and horses lay about the yard.  Nevertheless the waiter and his wife cleared for my accommodation a room which had been full of noisy people, and my horses were soon lodged snugly in the stable.  There indeed I perceived more room than the house afforded, for while the guests were regaling within their horses were allowed to lay about to starve outside, as if so many gypsies had been about the place; no uncommon circumstance in Australia.

October 30.

In the course of my ride this morning I recognised the poor scrubby land about the southern boundary of the county of Argyle, which I had surveyed in 1828.  The wood on it is rather open, consisting of a stunted species of eucalyptus, the grass, apparently a hard species of poa, affording but little nourishment.  Sandstone and quartz are the predominant rocks although some of the most remarkable hills consist of trap.

BREDALBANE PLAINS.

Passing at length through a gap in a low ridge of granular quartz, we entered upon Bredalbane plains, consisting of three open flats of grassy land circumscribed by hills of little apparent height, and extending about twelve miles in the direction of this road, their average width being about two miles.  Deringullen ponds arise in the most southern plain, and are among the most eastern heads of the Lachlan.  The plains are situated on the high dividing ground or water shed between the streams falling eastward and westward, and had probably once been lagoons of the same character as those which still distinguish other portions of this dividing ground.

LAKE GEORGE.