Oct. 24.—­The creek being boggy, we had to follow it down for several miles to find a crossing place.  Even here, one of the horses which carried the tea, fell back into the water, whilst endeavouring to scramble up the opposite bank, and drenched its valuable load.  We now travelled through a country full of lagoons, and chains of water-holes, and passed through several patches of cypress-pine, until we came to another creek with rocky water-holes, with the fall to the eastward, probably joining Dogwood Creek, from which we were not four miles distant.  Fine grassy flats accompanied the creek on its left, whilst a cypress-pine forest grew on its right bank.  The latitude of our yesterday’s camp was 26 degrees 26 minutes 30 seconds and, to-day, we are only four miles more to the westward.  The country is still so flat and so completely wooded—­sometimes with scrubs, thickets, Acacia, and Vitex groves, sometimes with open Ironbark forest intermingled with spotted gum—­that no view of distant objects can be obtained.  Several Epacridaceous shrubs and species of Bossiaea and Daviesia reminded me of the flora of the more southern districts.

Oct. 25.—­We travelled about twelve miles in a north-westerly direction, our latitude being 26 degrees 15 minutes 46 seconds.  The country in general scrubby, with occasional reaches of open forest land.  The rosemary-leaved tree of the 23rd was very abundant.  An Acacia with spiny phyllodia, the lower half attached to the stem, the upper bent off in the form of an open hook, had been observed by me on the sandstone ridges of Liverpool Plains:  and the tout ensemble reminded me forcibly of that locality.  The cypress-pine, several species of Melaleuca, and a fine Ironbark, with broad lanceolate, but not cordate, glaucous leaves, and very dark bark, formed the forest.  An arborescent Acacia, in dense thickets, intercepted our course several times.  Bronze-winged pigeons were very numerous, but exceedingly shy.

The stillness of the moonlight night is not interrupted by the screeching of opossums and flying squirrels, nor by the monotonous note of the barking-bird and little owlet; no native dog is howling round our camp in the chilly morning:  the cricket alone chirps along the water-holes; and the musical note of an unknown bird, sounding like “gluck gluck” frequently repeated, and ending in a shake, and the melancholy wail of the curlew, are heard from the neighbouring scrub.

Oct. 26.—­Our journey was resumed:  wind in the morning from the west; light clouds passing rapidly from that quarter.

Messrs. Hodgson and Roper, following the chain of ponds on which we had encamped, came to a large creek, with high rocky banks and a broad stream flowing to the south-west.  We passed an Acacia scrub, and stretches of fine open Ironbark forest, interspersed with thickets of an aborescent species of Acacia, for about four miles in a north-west course, when we found ourselves on the margin of a considerable valley