them.  On the latter, inferior eucalypti and cypresses were mixed together.  The country was broken and undulating, and the hills stony, notwithstanding which, they appeared to have an abundance of pasture upon them.  Mr. Hume rode with me to the summit of a limestone elevation, from which I thought it probable we might have obtained such a view as would have enabled us to form some idea of the country into which we were about to descend.  But in following the river line, the eye wandered over a dark and unbroken forest alone.  The ranges from which we were fast receding formed an irregular and beautiful landscape to the southward; and contrasted strongly with the appearance of the country to the N. W., in which direction it was rapidly assuming a level.

We reached Mr. Palmer’s at a late hour in the afternoon, in consequence of a delay we experienced in crossing a gully, and encamped upon a high bank immediately opposite to the mouth of Molle’s rivulet which here joins the Macquarie from the southward.  The cattle had consumed all the food, and the ground on both sides of the river looked bare and arid.

No doubt, however, the face of the country in ordinary seasons wears a very different appearance.  Its general elevation continued high; nor did the Macquarie assume any change of aspect.  Mountain debris and rounded pebbles of various kinds formed its bed, which was much encumbered with timber.

Dibilamble.

We had been unable to persuade any of the natives of Wellington Valley to accompany us as guides, on our leaving that settlement.  Even Mr. Maxwell’s influence failed; for, notwithstanding the promises of several, when they saw that we were ready to depart, they either feigned sickness or stated that they were afraid of the more distant natives.  The fact is, that they were too lazy to wander far from their own district, and too fond of Maxwell’s beef to leave it for a precarious bush subsistence.  Fortunately we found several natives with Mr. Palmer’s stockmen, who readily undertook to conduct us by the nearest route to the cataract, which we considered to be midway between Wellington Valley and Mount Harris.  We started under their guidance for Dibilamble, Mr. Palmer’s second station, and reached it about half-past 4 p.m.  The distance between the two is sixteen miles.  The country for some miles differs in no material point from that through which we had already passed.  The same rich tracts of soil near the river and the same inferiority in the tracks remote from it.  Near Dibilamble, however, the limestone formation terminates, and gives place to barren stony ridges, upon which the cypress callities is of close and stunted growth.  The ridges themselves were formed of a coarse kind of freestone in a state of rapid decomposition.  The Tabragar (the Erskine of Mr. Oxley) falls into the Macquarie at Dibilamble.  It had long ceased to flow, being a small mountain torrent whose source, if we judge from the shingly nature of its bed, cannot