rising ground of forest land, which checks its further progress westerly.  I proceeded round the S.W. angle, and then, taking a northerly course, got down to the bottom of the first great marsh, thus completing the circuit of them.  I did not return to the camp until after 10 p.m., having crossed the river at day-light, nor did we procure any water from the time we left the stream to the moment of our recrossing it.

Wallis’s ponds.

Having completed our various arrangements, and closed our letters, we struck our tents on the morning of the 7th March; we remained, however, to witness the departure of Riley’s party for Wellington Valley, and then left the Macquarie on an E.N.E. course for Wallis’s Ponds, and made them at about 14 miles.  They undoubtedly empty themselves into the marshes, and are a continuation of that chain of ponds on which I left the party in Mr. Hume’s charge.  About a mile from Mount Harris, we passed a small dry creek, that evidently lays the country under water in the wet seasons.  There was a blue-gum flat to the eastward of it, which we crossed, and then entered a brush of acacia pendula and box.  The soil upon the plain was an alluvial deposit; that in the brushes was sandy.  From the extremity of the plain, Mount Harris bore, by compass, S.W. by W.; Mount Foster due west.  The scrub through which we were penetrating, at length became so dense, that we found it impossible to travel in a direct line through it, and frequent ridges of cypresses growing closely together, turned us repeatedly from our course.  The country at length became clearer, and we travelled over open forest of box, casuarina, and cypresses, on a sandy soil; the first predominating.  For about two miles before we made the creek, the country was not heavily timbered, the acacia pendula succeeding the larger trees.  The ground had a good covering of grass upon it, and there were few of the salsolaceous plants, so abundant on the western plains, to be found.  The rough-gum abounded near the creek, with a small tree bearing a hard round nut, and we had the luxury of plenty of water.

We remained stationary on the 8th, in hopes that Riley would have met the soldier who had been sent back to Wellington Valley, and that he would have forwarded any letters to us, of which he might have been the bearer.  The day, however, passed over without realizing our expectations; and we started once more for the interior, and cut ourselves off from all communication with society.

Morrisset’s ponds.

We made for Morrisset’s chain of ponds, and travelled over rich and extensive plains, divided by plantations of cypress, box, and casuarina, in the early and latter period of the day.  About noon we entered a dense forest of cypresses, which continued for three miles, when the cypresses became mixed with casuarina, box, and mountain-gum, a tree we had not remarked before in so low a situation.