Our Start This Morning Was Late, Some Of Our Horses Having Wandered In The Night, The Feed At The Camp Not Being Very Good; Indeed The Only Green Herb Met By Us, For Some Considerable Distance, Has Been The Sow Or Milk Thistle (Sonchus Oleraceus), Which Grows To A Considerable Height.

Of this the horses are extremely fond:

It is also very fattening. Entering the mouth of the glen, in two miles we found ourselves fairly enclosed by the hills, which shut in the river on both sides. We had to follow the windings of the serpentine channel; the mountains occasionally forming steep precipices overhanging the stream, first upon one side, then upon the other. We often had to lead the horses separately over huge ledges of rock, and frequently had to cut saplings and lever them out of the way, continually crossing and recrossing the river. On camping in the glen we had only made good eleven miles, though to accomplish this we had travelled more than double the distance. At the camp a branch creek came out of the mountains to the westwards, which I named Phillip's Creek. The whole of this line of ranges is composed of red sandstone in large or small fragments, piled up into the most grotesque shapes. Here and there caves and caverns exist in the sides of the hills.

A few trees of the cypress pine (Callitris) were seen upon the summits of the higher mounts. The hills and country generally seen in this glen are more fertile than those outside, having real grass instead of triodia upon their sides. I saw two or three natives just before camping; they kept upon the opposite side of the water, according to a slight weakness of theirs. Just at the time I saw them, I had my eye on some ducks upon the water in the river bed, I therefore determined to kill two birds with one stone; that is to say, to shoot the ducks and astonish the natives at the same time. I got behind a tree, the natives I could see were watching me most intently the while, and fired. Two ducks only were shot, the remainder of the birds and the natives, apparently, flying away together. Our travels to-day were very agreeable; the day was fine, the breezes cool, and the scenery continually changing, the river taking the most sinuous windings imaginable; the bed of it, as might be expected in such a glen, is rough and stony, and the old fear of the horses bogging has departed from us. By bearings back upon hills at the mouth of the glen I found our course was nearly north 23 degrees west. The night was clear and cold; the stars, those sentinels of the sky, appeared intensely bright. To the explorer they must ever be objects of admiration and love, as to them he is indebted for his guidance through the untrodden wilderness he is traversing. "And sweet it is to watch them in the evening skies weeping dew from their gentle eyes." Several hundred pelicans, those antediluvian birds, made their appearance upon the water early this morning, but seeing us they flew away before a shot could be fired.

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