fancied I saw the refracted tops of other ranges floating in the mirage.  I thought, from the mountain just mentioned, I might discover others, which might lead me away to the west.  Up to the present time we had always called this, in consequence of its bearing when first seen, the North-west Mountain.  I thought a change of country might be met with sooner in a north or north-westerly direction than in a west or south-westerly one, as the sources of the Murchison River must be met somewhere in the former direction.  I tried the boiling-point of water here, and found that the ebullition occurred at two degrees higher than at the Alice Falls, which indicated a fall of nearly 1000 feet, the western end of the range being much lower than the middle or eastern.  We had still a couple of bottles of spirit left in the medical department, and as nobody seemed inclined to get ill, we opened one here.  Jimmy Andrews having been a sailor boy, I am afraid had learnt bad habits, as he was very fond of grog.  When we opened the last bottle at Christmas, and Jimmy had had a taste, he said, “What’s the use of only a nobbler or two?  I wouldn’t give a d—­,” dump, I suppose he meant, “for grog unless I could get drunk.”  I said, “Well, now, my impression is that it would require very little grog to do that.”  He said, “Why, I’d drink six bottles off and never know it.”  I said, “Well, the next bottle we open you shall have as much out of it as you can take in one drink, even if you drink the whole bottle.”  He replied, “Oh, all right, I’ll leave a nobbler for you, you know, Mr. Giles; and I’d like to give Tietkens a taste; but that [adjective] Gibson, I’ll swear he won’t git none.”  So we opened the bottle, and I said, “Now then, Jimmy, here’s your grog, let’s see how much you can drink.”  “Oh!” said he,” I ain’t going to drink it all at once.”  “All right,” I said, “if you don’t, we shall—­so now is your chance.”  Jimmy poured out a good stiff glass and persisted in swallowing it raw.  In five minutes he was fast asleep, and that was all he got out of the bottle; he never woke till morning, and then—­well, the bottle was empty then.

My readers will form a better idea of this peculiar and distant mountain range when I tell them that it is more than sixty miles long, averaging five or six miles through.  It is of a bold and rounded form; there is nothing pointed or jagged in its appearance anywhere, except where the eagle sat upon the rock at the Circus; its formation is mostly a white conglomerate, something between granite, marble, and quartz, though some portions are red.  It is surrounded, except to the east, by deserts, and may be called the monarch of those regions where the unvisited mountains stand.  It possesses countless rocky glens and gorges, creeks and valleys, nearly all containing reservoirs of the purest water.  When the Australian summer sunset smooths the roughness of the corrugated range, like a vast and crumpled garment, spread by the great Creator’s