When we left this place, our course, for the first three miles, was along the embankment separating the river from the lagoon, and I remarked that although there was so little vegetation on the ground, there were some magnificent trees on the bank of the river itself, which gradually came up to the north-east.  At three miles, however, our further course along the flats was checked by the hills of fossil formation, which approached the river so closely as to leave no passage for the drays between it and them.  We were, therefore, obliged to ascend to the upper levels, in doing so we were also obliged to put two teams, or sixteen bullocks, to each dray, and even then found it difficult to master the ascent.

Referring back to a previous remark, I would observe that the Murray river is characterised by bold and perpendicular cliffs of different shades of yellow colour, varying from a light hue to a deep ochre.  These cliffs rise abruptly from the water to the height of 250 and occasionally 300 feet.  They occur first on one side of the river, and then on the other, there being an open or a lightly-timbered flat on the opposite side, with a line of trees almost invariably round it, especially along the river.  These flats are backed, at uncertain distances, by the fossil formation, as by a natural inclosure—­sometimes it rises perpendicularly from the flats, but more generally assumes the character of sloping hills.  The cliffs occasionally extend, like a wall, along the river for two or three miles, and look exceedingly well; but their constant recurrence, at length fatigues the eye.  At the point at which we had now arrived this remarkable formation ceases, or, as we are going up the river, I should perhaps be more correct if I said, begins.  Above it a long line of hills, broken by deep and rugged stony gullies, and with steep sides, extends to the eastward (that also being the upward course of the river).  On gaining the crest of these hills we found ourselves, as usual, on a flat table land, notwithstanding the broken faces of the hills themselves.  There was only a narrow space between them, and a low thick brush of eucalyptus to the north.  The soil was, as usual, a mixture of clay and sand, with small rounded nodules of limestone.  From this ground, the view to the south as a medium point, was over as dark and monotonous a country as could well be described.  There was not a single break in its sombre hue, nor was there the slightest rise on the visible horizon; both to the eastward and westward we caught glimpses of the Murray glittering amidst the dark foliage beneath us, but it made no change in the character of the landscape.