August 19.—­Full of the hopes entertained yesterday, at half past eight o’clock we pursued our course down Glenfinlass.  A mile and a half brought us into the valley which we had seen on our first descending into the glen:  imagination cannot fancy anything more beautifully picturesque than the scene which burst upon us.  The breadth of the valley to the base of the opposite gently rising hills was, between three and four miles, studded with fine trees, upon a soil which for richness can nowhere he excelled; its extent north and south we could not see:  to the west it was bounded by the lofty rocky ranges by which we had entered it; this was covered to the summit with cypresses and acacia in full bloom:  a few trees of the sterculia heterophylla, with their bright green foliage, gave additional beauty to the scene.  In the centre of this charming valley ran a strong and beautiful stream, its bright transparent waters dashing over a gravelly bottom, intermingled with large stones, forming at short intervals considerable pools, in which the rays of the sun were reflected With a brilliancy equal to that of the most polished mirror.  I should have been well contented to have found this to be the Macquarie River, and at first conceived it to be so.  Under this impression, I intended stopping upon its banks for the remainder of the day, and then proceeding up the stream southerly.  Whilst we were waiting for the horses to come up we crossed the stream, and wishing to see as much of the country on its banks northerly, as possible, I proceeded down the stream, and had scarcely rode a mile when I was no less astonished than delighted to find that it joined a very fine river, coming from the east-south-east from among the chain of low grassy hills, bounding the east side of the valley in which we were.  This then was certainly the long sought Macquarie, the sight of which amply repaid us for all our former disappointments.  Different in every respect from the Lachlan, it here formed a river equal to the Hawkesbury at Windsor, and in many parts as wide as the Nepean at Emu Plains.  These noble streams were connected by rapids running over a rocky and pebbly bottom, but not fordable, much resembling the reaches and falls at the crossing place at Emuford, only deeper:  the water was bright, and transparent, and we were fortunate enough to see it at a period when it was neither swelled beyond its proper dimensions by mountain floods, nor contracted by summer droughts.  From its being at least four times larger than it is at Bathurst, even in a favourable season, it must have received great accessions of water from the mountains north-easterly; for from the course it has run from Bathurst, and the number of streams we have crossed all running to form it from the south and south-west, I do not think it can receive many more from that quarter between us and Bathurst, at least of sufficient strength to have formed the present river.