I rejoined my party at the creek which comes from Mount Stewart.  The natives had approached Mr. Gilbert when out shooting, with a singular, but apparently friendly, noise:  “Ach!  Ach!  Ach!” They had heard the cooce of my blackfellow Charley, and thought Mr. Gilbert wanted them; but, as he was alone, he thought it prudent to retire to the camp.

The thunder-storm, which we experienced on the night of the 19th, had completely changed the aspect of the country round Mount Stewart.  All the melon-holes of the scrub, all the ponds along the creeks, all the water-holes in the beds of the creeks, were full of water; the creek at which we encamped, was running; the grass looked fresh and green; the ground, previously rotten, was now boggy, and rendered travelling rather difficult; but we were always at home, for we found water and grass everywhere.

The days from the 17th to the 23rd were exceedingly hot, but, during the early morning and the evening, the air was delightfully cool.  Light casterly and northerly winds stirred during the day.  Cumuli passed from the same quarters; and generally gathered during the afternoon, and became very heavy.  The thunder-storms veered round from the west by the north to the eastward.  The nights of the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd were bright and cold, with heavy dew.  On the morning of the 23rd we had misty, loose, confluent clouds, travelling slowly from the north-east, with some drops of rain.  I was now convinced that the rainy season had set in near the sea coast; for the clouds which came from that direction, had evidently been charged with rain; but, in passing over a large tract of dry country, they were exhausted of their moisture, and the north-easterly winds were too weak to carry them quickly so far inland.

The whole country I had travelled over, is composed of sandstone, with probably occasional outbreaks of igneous rocks, as indicated by the rich black soil.  The plains and creeks abound in fossil wood, changed into iron-ore and silica.  The soil is generally good, but some of the sandy flats are rotten:  and the ridges are covered with pebbles.

The trees, with the exception of the flooded-gum, are of stunted habit; and scrub is here developed ad infinitum.  A Grevillea (G. ceratophylla R.Br.?) with pinnatifid leaves, a small tree from fifteen to twenty feet high, and about four inches in diameter; a Melaleuca about the same size, with stiff lanceolate leaves, about two inches long and half an inch broad, and slightly foliaceous bark; and an Acacia with glaucous bipinnate leaves, of the section of the brush Acacias of Moreton Bay—­grew on the sandy soil along the ridges; and a handsome Convolvulus with pink flowers adorned the rich plain south-east of Mount Stewart.  I examined the wood of all the arborescent Proteaceae which I met with, and observed in all of them, with the exception of Persoonia, the great development of the medullary rays, as it exists in several species of Casuarina.