they knew of no sea.  They asserted that there was mud out in that direction, and that a party would be unable to travel; from which I inferred either that some branch of the Darling spread out its waters there in time of flood, or that Lake Torrens itself was stretching out in the direction indicated.  Thirdly, I hold it physically impossible that a sea can exist in the place assigned to it, in as much as during an expedition, undertaken by the Surveyor-general of the Colony, in September, 1843, that officer had attained a position which would place himself and Mr. Poole at two opposite points, upon nearly the same parallel of latitude; but about 130 miles of longitude apart, in a low level country, and in which, therefore, the ranges of their respective vision from elevations would cross each other, and if there was a sea, Captain Frome must have seen it as well as Mr. Poole; again, I myself had an extensive and distant view to the north-east and east from Mount Hopeless, a low hill, about ninety miles further north than Captain Frome’s position, but a little more east; yet there was nothing like a sea to be seen from thence, the dry and glazed-looking bed of Lake Torrens alone interrupting the monotony of the desert.

There are still some few points connected with our knowledge of the outskirts of the interior which leave great room for speculation, and might lead to the opinion that it is not altogether a low or a desert region.  The facts which have more immediately come under my own observation, are connected, first with the presence of birds belonging to a higher and better country in the midst of a desert region, and secondly, with the line of route taken by the Aborigines in spreading over the continent, as deduced from a coincidence or dissimilarity of the manners, customs, or languages of tribes remotely apart from one another.

With respect to the presence of birds in a region such as they do not usually frequent, I may state that at Mount Arden, near the head of Spencer’s Gulf, swans were seen taking their flight high in the air, to the north, as if making for some river or lake they were accustomed to feed at.  At the Frome river, where it spreads into the plains to the north of Flinders range; four white cockatoos were found flying about among the trees, although those birds had not been met with for 200 miles before I attained that point. [Note 36:  Vide Vol.  I. July 4, Aug 31, and March 19.] And about longitude 128 degrees 20 minutes E., when crossing over towards King George’s Sound, large parrots were found coming from the north-east, to feed upon the berries of a shrub growing on the sea coast, although no parrots were seen for two or three hundred miles on either side, either to the east or to the west, they must, therefore, have come from the interior.  Now the parrot is a bird that often frequents a mountainous country, and always inhabits one having timber of a better description and larger growth than the miserable shrubs met with along the coast; it is a bird too that always lives within reach of permanent fresh-water, as rivers, lakes, creeks, pools, etc.  Can there then be such in the interior, with so barren and arid a region, bounding it? and how are we to commence an examination with so many difficulties and embarrassments attending the very outset?