Feb. 2.—­Being much recovered, I took both Blackfellows with me, and again passed the defile east of Roper’s and Scott’s Peaks, and followed the watercourse rising from it to the northward.  About two or three miles lower down, we found water in deep rocky basins in the bed of the creek.  The rock was sandstone, fissured from south-west to north-east.

In passing the foot of the peaks, we found a species of Grewia (Dwarf Roorajong) covered with ripe fruit; the fruit is dry, but the stringy tissue which covers the seed, contains a slightly sweet and acidulous substance of a very agreeable taste.  The fig-tree with a rough leaf, had plenty of fruit, but not yet ripe.  Erythrina was both in blossom and in seed.

Sending Brown back to conduct our party to the water-holes we had found, and leaving the creek, which turned to the eastward, I continued my ride to the northward.  I passed some gentle well-grassed slopes of narrow-leaved Ironbark and spotted gum; and also several basaltic ridges, which head out into small plains gently sloping to the east and north-east.  They are formed of a rich black soil, and generally a shallow creek meanders through them:  sandstone ridges formed their boundary lower down, where, at their foot, water-holes generally existed, either with a constant supply of water, or readily filled by thunder-showers.  The basaltic ridges, as well as the plains, were covered with a fine crop of dry grass; but the sandstone ridges were frequently scrubby.  The difference between the sandstone country and the basaltic plains and ridges, is very striking in respect to the quantity of water they contain:  in the latter, rain is immediately absorbed by the cracked porous soil, which requires an immense quantity of moisture before it allows any drainage; whereas the sandstone forms steeper slopes, and does not absorb the rain so quickly, so that the water runs down the slopes, and collects in holes at the foot of the hills parallel to the creeks.  Scrubs are frequent round the low rises of sandstone; and, where the country is level, and the soil loamy, the hollows are often filled with water by the thunder-storms.  The moist character of this description of country is probably the cause of the vegetation being more dense than it is in the rich black soil of the plains; in which latter, the seeds of the grasses and herbs lie dormant, until the first rain falls, when they instantly germinate and cover the plain with their rapid and luxuriant growth, as if by enchantment; but which, from its nature, is incapable of maintaining the growth of scrubs and trees.

Feb. 3.—­The dew was heavy through the night; and, in the morning, loose rainy clouds gathered from the east and north-east, which, however, disappeared about eleven o’clock.  Charley went back to the camp, to bring it on, and I continued to reconnoitre to the north-west.  After passing a sandstone ridge, I came to a creek, which went to the north-west, and which was supplied with water by the late thunder-showers.  It was bounded on both sides by sandstone ridges, whose summits were covered with scrub and Acacia thickets; and by grassy slopes and flats bearing narrow-leaved Ironbark and Bastard-box.  This would be a most beautiful country, if it contained a constant supply of water.