several sheets of water; its bed was broad, with many channels, the intermediate spaces being thickly set with long coarse green rushes.  The flow of the water was to the north, and the creek evidently went through a glen or pass; the timber grew thick and vigorous; the water had a slightly brackish taste.  All through the pass we saw several small sheets of water.  One fine hole had great quantities of ducks on it, but Gibson, who started to shoot some of them, couldn’t get his gun to go off, but the ducks’ firearms acted much better, for they went off extremely well.

We encamped at a place near a recent native camp, where the grass was very good.  This was evidently a permanently watered pass, with some excellent country round it to the south.

The range appeared to continue to the west, and this seemed the only pass through it.  I called this the Pass of the Abencerrages—­that is to say, the Children of the Saddle.  The creek and its waters I named Sladen Water, after the late Sir Charles Sladen*.  This evening, having had a comfortable bath, I was getting my blankets ready for bed when Jimmy Andrews came rushing over to me.  I immediately grabbed a rifle, as I thought it was an attack by the natives.  He merely begged to know what day of the month it was, and requested me to mention the fact, with day and date in my journal, that—­yes, Gibson was actually seen in the act of bathing.  I thought Jimmy was joking, as this I could not believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes, but there was the naked form, the splashing water, and the swimming dog.  It was a circumstance well worth recording, for I am sure it is the first full bodied ablution he has indulged in since leaving Mount Olga, eighteen weeks to a day, and I am not at all sure that he bathed there.  It was therefore with great pleasure that I recorded the unusual circumstance.  When Jimmy left me grinning, and I had time to get over my surprise, and give mature consideration to this unusual matter, it did seem to me better, having the welfare of the whole of the members of my expedition at heart—­I say, it did appear better, on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, that Gibson should endure the agony of an all-over wash, than that we should be attacked and perhaps killed by the natives.

The flies on this range are evidently very numerous, for their attention to our eyes is not only persistent but very annoying.

This morning I made the latitude of this pass to be 24 degrees 58’, and longitude 127 degrees 55’.  We followed this creek; travelling along its banks, we found native huts very numerous, and for a few miles some sheets of water were seen; the bed then became too sandy; its course was about north-west.  In eight or nine miles we found that sandhill and casuarina country existed, and swallowed up the unfortunate creek.  The main line of ranges continued westerly, and, together with another range in front of us to