De Rinsy’s Tracks.—­Near here we found the tracks of drays; there were four distinct tracks, two of which appeared to be those of heavy horse drays, the other two might have been made by light ones or ring carts; we were unable to make out the tracks of the horses or cattle.  I cannot imagine what tracks these are, unless they may be those of De Rinsy, who, I believe, had some drays with him, and reported that he had been somewhere in this direction.  From Camp 54 to Camp 55 we were obliged to take a very circuitous route on account of the rugged and stony nature of the ranges, which were more extensive than we had anticipated.  They stretch away far to the north and north-north-west, and although we kept well out to the north-west we were unable to avoid the low stony rises which adjoin them.

On the north-west side of the hills we crossed two dry creeks which flow in a north-north-easterly direction; their banks are thinly lined with box trees, and the holes in them were quite dry.  From this we took a west-north-westerly course, across an undulating country covered with sandstone, quartz, and (magnetic) ironstone pebbles, so densely and firmly set together in some places as to have the appearance of an old-fashioned pavement.  At about three miles, we had to change our course to north-west, to avoid a spur of the high range on our left.  At two miles further we came to a grassy flat through which ran a fine-looking creek, but the bed was sandy and quite dry; there were, however, a good many small birds about here, which would indicate that there must be water in the neighbourhood.  We here again changed our course to west-north-west, and at six miles camped at a dry stony creek, having travelled about eight-and-twenty miles over the worst ground that we had yet met with.  On the morning of the 10th we continued on a west-north-westerly course, across stony ground of the same nature as that passed during the previous day; but at a distance of five miles we turned to west quarter south, as the ranges appeared to be as low in that direction as in the other; and as they ran nearly north-north-west there seemed a chance of sooner getting out of them, which we did at a distance of about eight miles more.

From the point at which we emerged from these ranges the view was as follows:—­From south-west nearly up to north-west were extensive plains, as far as the eye could reach, intersected by numerous lines of timber, the general direction of which was about north-north-west.  Several columns of smoke were visible along these lines, some of which had the appearance of camp and others of bush fires.  From north-west to north were lines of ranges running in a north-westerly direction, and in the valley between us and the first spur was a fine line of timber, indicating the course of what appeared to be a large creek, probably the recipient of all the small creeks that we had crossed during the morning; in every other direction there was nothing to be seen but timbered sandstone