it descended through a narrow rocky gully, down which I found great difficulty in bringing the horses; and afterwards wound through a fine forest land, avoiding the rocky hills, and touching the heads of westerly creeks, which were well supplied with rocky basins of water.  It then followed a creek down into swampy lagoons, which joined the broad irregular sandy bed of a river containing large pools and reaches of water, lined with Pandanus and drooping tea-trees.  This river came from the eastward, and was probably the principal branch of the East Alligator River, which joined the salt-water branch we had crossed in latitude about 12 degrees 6 minutes.  We met another foot-path at its northern bank, which led us between the river and ranges of rocky hills, over a country abounding with the scarlet Eugenia, of which we made a rich harvest.  We encamped at a fine lagoon, occupied, as usual, with geese and ducks, and teeming with large fish, which were splashing about during the whole night.  The situation of these lagoons was, by an observation of Castor, in lat. 12 degrees 6 minutes 2 seconds; and about nine miles north-west from our last camp.

Immediately after our arrival, Brown went to shoot some geese, and met with two natives who were cooking some roots, but they withdrew in great haste as soon as they saw him.  Soon afterwards, however, a great number of them came to the opposite side of the lagoon, and requested a parley.  I went down to them with some presents, and a young man came over in a canoe to met me.  I gave him a tin canister, and was agreeably surprised to find that the stock of English words increased considerably; that very few things we had were new to him, and that he himself had been at the settlement.  His name was “Bilge.”  He called me Commandant, and presented several old men to me under the same title.  Several natives joined us, either using the canoe, or swimming across the lagoon, and, after having been duly introduced to me, I took four of them to the camp, where they examined everything with great intelligence, without expressing the least desire of possessing it.  They were the most confiding, intelligent, inquisitive natives I had ever met before.  Bilge himself took me by the hand and went to the different horses, and to the bullock and asked their names and who rode them.  The natives had always been very curious to know the names of our horses, and repeated “Jim Crow,” “Flourbag,” “Caleb,” “Irongrey,” as well as they could, with the greatest merriment.  Bilge frequently mentioned “Devil devil,” in referring to the bullock, and I think he alluded to the wild buffaloes, the tracks of which we soon afterwards saw.  We asked him for “Allamurr;” and they expressed their readiness to bring it, as soon as the children and women, who both went under the denomination of Piccaninies, returned to the camp.  The day being far advanced, and their camp a good way off, they left us, after inviting us to accompany them:  but