“It’s a very fine thing, and delightful to see
    Inclination and duty both join and agree.”

Some of the natives near him threatened us with their spears, and waved knobbed sticks at us, but we departed without any harm being done on either side.

(Illustration:  The palm-tree found in the glen of palms.)

Soon after leaving the natives, we had the gratification of discovering a magnificent specimen of the Fan palm, a species of Livistona, allied to one in the south of Arnhem’s Land, and now distinguished as the Maria Palm (Baron von Mueller), growing in the channel of the watercourse with flood drifts against its stem.  Its dark-hued, dome-shaped frondage contrasted strangely with the paler green foliage of the eucalyptus trees that surrounded it.  It was a perfectly new botanical feature to me, nor did I expect to meet it in this latitude.  “But there’s a wonderful power in latitude, it alters a man’s moral relations and attitude.”  I had noticed some strange vegetation in the dry flood drifts lower down, and was on the qui vive for something new, but I did not know that.  This fine tree was sixty feet long, or high, in the barrel.  Passing the palms, we continued amongst the defiles of this mountain glen, which appears to have no termination, for no signs of a break or anything but a continuation of the range could be observed from any of the hills I ascended.

It was late in the afternoon when we left the palm-groves, and though we travelled over twenty miles in distance could only make twelve good from last camp.  Although this glen was rough and rocky, yet the purling of the water over its stony bed was always a delightful sound to me; and when the winds of evening fanned us to repose, it seemed as though some kindly spirit whispered that it would guard us while we slept and when the sun declined the swift stream echoed on.

The following day being Sunday, the 1st September, I made it a day of rest, for the horses at least, whose feet were getting sore from continued travel over rocks and boulders of stone.  I made an excursion into the hills, to endeavour to discover when and where this apparently interminable glen ceased, for with all its grandeur, picturesqueness, and variety, it was such a difficult road for the horses, that I was getting heartily tired of it; besides this, I feared this range might be its actual source, and that I should find myself eventually blocked and stopped by impassable water-choked gorges, and that I should finally have to retreat to where I first entered it.  I walked and climbed over several hills, cliffs, and precipices, of red sandstone, to the west of the camp, and at length reached the summit of a pine-clad mountain considerably higher than any other near it.  Its elevation was over 1000 feet above the level of the surrounding country.  From it I obtained a view to all points