the Mount Serle chain, and I ventured to hope that I had at length found a way to escape from the gloomy region to which we had been so long confined.  Descending from our position we pushed for a dark mass of foliage to the N.E., and shortly after crossing the dry bed of a lagoon, found ourselves riding through an open box-tree forest, amidst an abundance of grass.  At half a mile further we were brought up by our arrival on the banks of a magnificent channel.  There was a large sheet of water to our left, covered with wild fowl.  Flooded gum-trees of large size grew on its banks, and its appearance was altogether imposing.  I stood looking in admiration on the broad mirror so close to me, and upon a sight so unusual; and I deeply regretted at that moment that Mr. Browne was not with me to enjoy the gratification of such a scene.

We dismounted and turned our horses out to feed on the long grass in the bed of this beautiful creek, and whilst Morgan prepared breakfast, Mr. Stuart and Mack took their guns and knocked over three ducks, that were, I suppose, never used to be so taken in; but the remainder would not stand fire long, and flew off to the eastward.  As they passed, however, I snatched up a carbine, and, without taking any aim, discharged it into the midst of them, and brought one of their number down—­the only bird I had shot for many years.

After giving the horses a good feed and a good rest, I crossed the channel of the creek to ascend the little hill I had seen from our morning position, that by taking bearings of the distant ranges from both, I might arrive at their approximate distance from me.  From this little hill the prospect was much the same as from the first, only that the distant ranges seemed to be still higher, and there was a long line either of water or mirage at their base, and we now appeared to be in a belt of wood, for the hill on which we stood, rose in the midst of the trees, and our eyes wandered over the tops of them to the distant plains.  We descended from it northwards, but had not gone half a mile, when we were again stopped by another creek, still broader and finer than the first.  The breadth of its channel was more than 200 yards, its banks were from fifteen to eighteen feet high, and it had splendid sheets of water both above and below us.  The natives, whose broad and well beaten paths leading from angle to angle of the creek we had crossed on our approach to it, had fired the grass, and it was now springing up in the bed of the most beautiful green.  I determined, therefore, to stay where I was until the following day, to give my animals the food and rest they so much required, and myself time for reflection.  We accordingly dismounted, and turned the horses out, and it was really a pleasure to see them in clover.