I Hope It Will Trickle Till I Return.

We are now fifty miles from Fort Mueller, and the distant ranges seemed even farther away than that.

Moving north, we went over a mass of open-rolling sandhills with triodia, and that other abominable plant I call the sage-bush. In appearance it is something like low tea-tree, but it differs entirely from that family, inasmuch as it utterly abhors water. Although it is not spiny like the triodia, it is almost as annoying, both to horse and man, as it grows too high for either to step over without stretching, and it is too strong to be easily moved aside; hence, horse-tracks in this region go zigzag.

At thirty-five miles the open sandhills ceased, and scrubs came on. It was a cool and cloudy day. We passed through a few groves of the pretty desert oak-trees, which I have not seen for some time; a few native poplars and currajongs were also seen to-day. The horses wandered a long way back in the night.

After travelling fifteen miles, we were now rapidly approaching the range, and we debouched upon a eucalyptus flat, which was covered with a beautiful carpet of verdure, and not having met with gumtrees for some time, those we saw here, looked exceedingly fine, and the bark dazzling white. Here we found a clay crab-hole. These holes are so-called in parts of Australia, usually near the coasts, where freshwater crabs and crayfish bury themselves in the bottoms of places where rain water often lodges; the holes these creatures make are tubes of two, three, or four feet deep, whose sides and bottom are cemented, and which hold water like a glass bottle; in these tubes they remain till rain again lodges above, when for a time they are released. The crab-hole we found contained a little water, which our horses drank with great avidity. The range was now only six or seven miles off, and it stood up bold and abrupt, having steep and deep gorges here and there, in its southern front. It was timberless and whitish-looking, and I had no doubt of finding water at it. I was extremely annoyed to discover that my field glasses, an excellent pair, had been ripped off my saddle in the scrubs, and I should now be disappointed in obtaining any distant view from the summit.

"They were lost to the view like the sweet morning's dew; They had been, and were not, was all that I knew."

From the crab-hole, in seven miles we reached a gorge in the mountain side, travelling through scrub, over quartz, pebbly hills, and occasional gum flats, all trending west, probably forming a creek in that direction.

In the gorge facing us we could discover a glittering little thread of water pouring down in a cascade from the top of the mountain into the gorge below, and upon reaching it we found, to our great delight, that we were upon the stony bank of a beautiful and pellucid little stream, whose almost invisibly bright water was so clear that not till our horses splashed it up with their feet could we quite realise this treasure trove. It was but a poor place for the horses to graze, on account of the glen being so stony and confined, but there was no occasion for them to ramble far to get plenty of grass, or a shady place either. We had some dinner and a most agreeable rest, -

"'Neath the gum-trees' shade reclining, Where the dark green foliage twining, Screened us from the fervid shining Of the noontide sun."

This spot was distant about ninety miles from Fort Mueller, in a straight line. The day was cool and breezy. After our dinner we walked up to the foot of the cascade, along the margin of the transparent stream, which meandered amongst great boulders of rock; at the foot we found the rocks rose almost perpendicularly from a charming little basin, into which the stream from above and the spray from below mingled with a most melodious sound, so pleasant to the ear at any time, but how much more to our drought-accustomed senses; continually sounding like the murmur in the sea-shell, which, as the poets say, remembering its ancient and august abode, still murmurs as it murmured then. The water fell from a height of 150 feet; the descent was not quite unbroken. A delightful shower of spray fell for many yards outside the basin, inviting to a bath, which we exquisitely enjoyed; the basin was not more than six feet deep. I am quite delighted with this new feature. There were gorges to the right of us, gorges to the left of us, and there was a gorge all round us. I shall not stay now to explore them, but will enter upon the task con amore when I bring the whole party here. I called these the Alice Falls, after one of my sisters. It was impossible to ascend the mountain via the cascade, so we had to flank it to reach the top. The view from thence, though inspiriting, was still most strange. Ranges upon ranges, some far and some near, bounded the horizon at all points. There was a high, bold-looking, mount or range to the north-west forty or fifty miles off. Up to a certain time we always called this the North-West Mountain, as it bore in that direction when first seen, until we discovered its proper name, when I christened it Mount Destruction. Other ranges intervened much nearer. The particular portion of the range we were now on, was 1000 feet above the surrounding level. I found the boiling-point of water on this summit was 206 degrees, being the same as upon the summit of the Sentinel - that is to say, 3085 feet above the sea. The country intervening between this and the other ranges in view, appeared open and good travelling ground.

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