I continued a course of 180 degrees up a steep limestone range, behind which apparently ran a branch of the watercourse we had just passed:  a good country lay to the eastward of us.  Stiles now delayed us so much that some of his comrades spoke to him very warmly on the subject, whilst others still held to the opinion that walking a few miles a day and sometimes halting a day or two to refresh was the true mode of proceeding.  We only made two miles this evening and I threw myself on the ground so worn and harassed that I could not sleep.

An extensive fertile country.

Sunday April 7.

Before the sun had appeared above the horizon I managed to get the party fairly started, and we followed a course of 180 degrees over elevated sandy downs which rested on a limestone formation.  The first four miles of our journey was not very encouraging; we could only see as far to the eastward as the flat-topped range; and although the slopes of these hills looked very fertile I had no means of judging how far back this good country extended; we had however been creeping gradually up an ascent, and when we gained the summit of this I turned to look to the northward after the straggling party, who were slowly mounting the hill, some of them staggering along under loads so heavy that I should have hated the tyranny of any man who could have compelled them to carry such a weight; but as it was I could only grieve to see men, from the hope of gain, rushing so inevitably on their fate.  Having gazed till weary at this painful picture of the weakness of human nature, I turned to the north-eastward, and there burst upon my sight a most enchanting view.  In the far east, that is, some twenty or five-and-twenty miles away, stretched a lofty chain of mountains, flat-topped and so regular in their outline that they appeared rather the work of art than of nature.  Between this range and the nearest one lay a large rich valley vying with the most fertile I have ever seen in an extra-tropical country.  In front of us lay another valley which drained a portion of the large one, and in both rose gently swelling hills and picturesque peaks, wooded in the most romantic manner.  Whilst I stood and looked on this scene, my woes were forgotten.  Such moments as these repay an explorer for much toil and trouble.

The Victoria range and district.  The province of Victoria.

The distant range I at once named the Victoria in honour of Her Majesty; and being now certain that the district we were in was one of the most fertile in Australia I named it the Province of Victoria.  There is no other part of extra-tropical Australia which can boast of the same number of streams in an equal extent of coast frontage, or which has such elevated land so near the sea; and I have seen no other which has so large an extent of good country.  It is however bounded both to the north and south by comparatively-speaking unproductive districts; but what the character of the country to the north-east and south-east may be still remains to be ascertained.