I was detained at this place from the 1st to the 4th March, from a severe attack of lumbago, which I had brought on by incautiously and, perhaps, unnecessarily exposing myself to the weather, in my botanical and other pursuits.  On the 4th March.  I had sufficiently recovered to mount my horse and accompany my party to Roper’s water-holes.  Basalt cropped out on the plains; the slight ridges of “devil-devil” land are covered with quartz pebbles, and the hills and bed of the river, are of sandstone formation.

A yellow, and a pink Hibiscus, were frequent along the river.

My calculations gave the longitude of 148 degrees 56 minutes for Skull Creek; my bearings however make it more to the westward; its latitude was supposed to be 21 degrees 42 minutes:  the cloudy nights prevented my taking any observation.

March 5.—­I sent Mr. Gilbert and Charley up the river, which, according to Mr. Roper’s account, came through a narrow mountain gully, the passage of which was very much obstructed by tea-trees.  They passed the mountain gorge, and, in about eight miles north, came to the heads of the Isaacs, and to those of another system of waters, which collected in a creek that flowed considerably to the westward.  The range through which the Isaacs passes is composed of sandstone, and strikes from north-west to south-east.  In its rocky caves, wallabies, with long smooth tails, had been seen by Brown; they were quite new to him, and, as he expressed himself, “looked more like monkeys than like wallabies.”  Mr. Gilbert and Charley came on two flocks of emus, and killed two young ones; and Charley and John Murphy hunted down another; Charley fell, however, with his horse, and broke a double-barrelled gun, which was a very serious loss to us, and the more so, as he had had the misfortune to break a single-barrelled one before this.

The weather continued showery; loose scud passed over from the east and south-east, with occasional breaks of hot sunshine.  The Corypha palm is frequent under the range; the Ebenaceous tree, with compound pinnate leaves and unequilateral leaflets, is of a middle size, about thirty feet high, with a shady and rather spreading crown.

We have travelled about seventy miles along the Isaacs.  If we consider the extent of its Bastard-box and narrow-leaved Ironbark flats, and the silver-leaved Ironbark ridges on its left bank, and the fine open country between the two ranges through which it breaks, we shall not probably find a country better adapted for pastoral pursuits.  There was a great want of surface water at the season we passed through it; and which we afterwards found was a remarkably dry one all over the colony:  the wells of the natives, however, and the luxuriant growth of reeds in many parts of the river, showed that even shallow wells would give a large supply to the squatter in cases of necessity; and those chains of large water-holes which we frequently met along and within the scrubs, when once filled, will retain their water for a long time.  The extent of the neighbouring scrubs will, however, always form a serious drawback to the squatter, as it will be the lurking place and a refuge of the hostile natives, and a hiding place for the cattle, which would always retire to it in the heat of the day, or in the morning and evening, at which time the flies are most troublesome.