In a tract of broad-leaved tea-tree forest, we came to a watercourse, which led us to a fine creek surrounded with Pandanus and drooping tea-trees, and containing a chain of deep water-holes in its bed.  Its course was from west to east.

Sept. 20.—­We removed our camp to the creek I had found last night, about nine miles north-west from the Robinson.  On our way, we saw two flocks of emus, and Spring caught one of the birds.  According to Charley, who is a native of Bathurst, the emus of this part of the country are much smaller than those of his country, which frequently yield from two to three gallons of oil; but very few of the gulf emus contained fat enough to fry their own liver; and their skin was as dry as that of the native dog.  A similar difference has been observed in the bustard, which, at the gulf, rarely weighed more than three pounds and a half; whereas individuals of twenty and twenty-eight pounds weight have been shot to the southward.

I succeeded here in cooking the seeds of Sterculia, which had recently been gathered; first by separating them from their prickly husks, and roasting them slightly, and then pounding and boiling them for a short time.  They produced not only a good beverage with an agreeable flavour, but ate well and appeared to be very nourishing.  They contained a great quantity of oil.

Brown caught an Agama, of a light yellowish colour, about a foot long.

The nights had been generally cloudy, with the exception of the last, which was clear with heavy dew.  The days were very hot before the setting in of the sea breeze, which now generally took place at half past eleven.  But the refreshing breeze was little felt in the close stringy-bark forest, which, with the dust rising under our bullocks’ feet, rendered the heat almost suffocating.

Sept. 21.—­Our journey to-day was in a N. 50 degrees W. direction for about eleven miles, through stringy-bark forest, in which the Melaleuca and the Cypress pine were either scattered, or formed small patches of forest.  We then crossed a shallow sandy creek surrounded with thickets of Cypress pine; passed some broad-leaved tea-tree forest, and came to a fine open country timbered with tea-tree, and, farther on, with box and white gum.  After fifteen miles, our course was intercepted by the largest salt-water river we had yet seen, and we turned at once to the W.S.W. in order to head it.  Deep hollows surrounded by tea-trees, but quite dry, extended parallel to the river.  We observed several islands in the river; and it was joined by some deep creeks filled with salt water at their lower parts, but dry higher up.  The whole country was equally open and well grassed.  The leguminous Ironbark, the white-barked tree of the Abel Tasman, the fig tree, and Sterculia in fruit, grew in the forest; and the white water-gum in the hollows, the drooping tea-tree at the level of the freshes, and a species of salt-water Casuarina below it.