not sorry to perceive.  Those to the west, and south-west, were the highest and most pointed.  It appears that the Finke must come under or through some of those to the north-west.  To-day I observed a most beautiful pigeon, quite new to me; it was of a dark-brown colour, mottled under the throat and on the breast; it had also a high top-knot.  It is considerably smaller than the Sturt pigeon of his Central Australian expedition.

It was now the 28th of August, and the temperature of the atmosphere was getting warmer.  Journeying now again about north-west, we reached a peculiar pointed hill with the Finke at its foot.  We passed over the usual red sandhill country covered with the porcupine grass, characteristic of the Finke country, and saw a shallow sheet of yellow rain water in a large clay pan, which is quite an unusual feature in this part of the world, clay being so conspicuous by its absence.  The hill, when we reached it, assumed the appearance of a high pinnacle; broken fragments of rock upon its sides and summit showed it too rough and precipitous to climb with any degree of pleasure.  I named it Christopher’s Pinnacle, after a namesake of mine.  The range behind it I named Chandler’s Range.  For some miles we had seen very little porcupine grass, but here we came into it again, to the manifest disgust of our horses.  We had now a line of hills on our right, with the river on our left hand, and in six or seven miles came to the west end of Chandler’s Range, and could see to the north and north-west another, and much higher the line running parallel to Chandler’s Range, but extending to the west as far as I could see.  The country hereabouts has been nearly all burnt by the natives, and the horses endeavour to pick roads where the dreaded triodia has been destroyed.

We passed a few clumps of casuarinas and a few stunted trees with broad, poplar-like leaves.  Travelling for twelve miles on this bearing, we struck the Finke again, running nearly north and south.  Here the river had a stony bed with a fine reach of water in it; so to-night at least our anxiety as regards the horses bogging is at an end.  The stream purling over its stony floor produces a most agreeable sound, such as I have not heard for many a day.  Here I might say, “Brightly the brook through the green leaflets, giddy with joyousness, dances along.”

Soon after we had unpacked and let go our horses, we were accosted by a native on the opposite side of the creek.  Our little dog became furious; then two natives appeared.  We made an attempt at a long conversation, but signally failed, for neither of us knew many of the words the other was saying.  The only bit of information I obtained from them was their name for the river—­as they kept continually pointing to it and repeating the word Larapinta.  This word, among the Peake and Charlotte natives, means a snake, and from the continual serpentine windings of this peculiar and only Central Australian river, no doubt the name is derived.  I shot a hawk for them, and they departed.  The weather to-day was fine, with agreeable cool breezes; the sky has become rather overcast; the flies are very numerous and troublesome; and it seems probable we may have a slight fall of rain before long.