running, but contained in its bed two chains of small deep ponds full of perches, and shaded with Pandanus and drooping tea-trees, which grew to a large size all over the bed between the two ponds.  I named this river the “Calvert,” in acknowledgment of the good services of Mr. Calvert during our expedition, and which I feel much pleasure in recording.  We saw two emus, and Brown killed one of them, with the assistance of the dog, which received a severe cut in the neck from the sharp claw of the bird.

The whole country round the gulf was well-grassed, particularly before we crossed the Nicholson; and on the plains and approaches to the rivers and creeks.  The large water-holes were frequently surrounded with a dense turf of Fimbristylis (a small sedge), which our horses liked to feed upon.  Some stiff grasses made their appearance when we approached the sea-coast, as well on the plains as in the forest.  The well-known kangaroo grass (Anthisteria) forms still one of the principal components of the pasture.  The scrubby country had a good supply of a tufty wind-grass; and, although the feed was dry during this part of the year, our horses and cattle did exceedingly well, as I have already mentioned.  Both took an occasional bite of some Acacias, of Grevillea chrysodendrum, and of several other shrubs.  Cattle driven over the country we have passed, by short stages, and during the proper season, would even fatten on the road.

When we approached the water-hole on which we were going to encamp, John observed a fine large Iguana in the water, which was so strikingly coloured that he thought it different from those we had previously seen.

Xyris, Philydrum, a species of Xerotes, and an aromatic spreading herb, grew in great abundance round the water.  I found a great quantity of the latter in the stomach of the emu.  A species of Crotolaria, two or three feet high, with simple woolly oblong or oblongo-lanceolate leaves, and with a beautiful green blossom of the form and size of that of Kennedya rubicunda, grew in the bed of the river.  Great numbers of large bright yellow hornets, with some black marks across the abdomen, visited the water.  Flies were exceedingly troublesome:  but the mosquitoes annoyed us very rarely, and only where water was very abundant.  The nights have been very dewy, but not cold.  The wind in the morning from the south-east, veering round to the northward during the day.

Sept. 9.—­We travelled north-west by north, and for several miles, through a scrubby stringy-bark forest, when we came to steep sandstone ridges, composed of a hard flaggy horizontally stratified rock.  Higher ranges were seen to the W.N.W. and west; and I found myself fairly caught between rocky hills when I least expected them, but hoped to enter upon a country corresponding in its character with the low coast marked down in the map, in this latitude.  I turned to the northward, and found a practicable path between