of such unfabulous centaurs, as we doubtless appeared to them.  The boats met with no interruption, the river continuing a fine and even stream, running at the rate of a mile and a half per hour:  it was in places very narrow, and our astonishment would have been excited that such a channel should contain the powerful body of water falling into it, if we had not found its medium depth to be from twenty to thirty feet.  The height of the banks is not more than seven feet above the water, and they appeared to have been flooded to that height.  It did not seem that back from the river, beyond three or four miles, the country was ever flooded, except by the waters which would fall on its surface in rainy seasons; it was, however, now quite dry, and the hollows of the surface bore evidence of a long continued drought.  The course of the river still continued to the north-north-west.  The rocks composing Mount Harris are apparently basaltic, the whole seeming to have been shot up in points. the angles of which are complete.  The stones are very heavy and compact, and when dashed against each other were extremely sonorous.

June 28.—­Remained here this day for the purpose of rest and refreshment:  the grass and country poor, and covered with acacia trees and small eucalypti in our immediate vicinity.  Despatched two men to view the country to the north-east.  The botanical collector crossed the river and ascended Mount Forster, on which he was fortunate enough to procure many plants seemingly new:  he thought he saw a branch of the river separating from it and running to the north-west, whilst the river itself continued to go northerly.  The account brought by the men in the evening was far from flattering; they had been out ten or twelve miles to the north and east, and found the country as bad as can be imagined; in fact, a dry morass, with higher land, free from floods, but overrun with brushes, among which a few pines were scattered:  they saw no water, and but little game of any kind.

June 29.—­As we proceeded down the river, the country gradually became much lower in its immediate vicinity; and between four and five miles from our resting-place it was even with the banks, and in some places overflowed them.  All travelling near the river with horses was at once interrupted, and this was the more perplexing as it rendered the communication with the boats uncertain, and liable to be cut off altogether.  Finding that those marshes were only impassable for a mile or little more from the river, and that occasionally we could approach within one hundred yards of it, the horses were directed to keep round the edge of them, making for the river whenever practicable, and firing guns to let the boats know our situation.  At two o’clock in the after. noon we stopped, after going about ten miles and a half, about one hundred and fifty yards from the river. which we could not approach nearer by reason of wet and boggy marshes; in fact, the place where we stopped