As We Should Not Have Been Able To
Cross It Before Nightfall, I Thought It Better To Remain Where There Was
Plenty Of Grass And Water.
From our tent we had a singularly picturesque
and pleasing prospect.
To the north, Hardwicke's Range, distant between
forty and fifty miles: the country broken into low forest hills and
plains to its base. To the north-east, east, and south-east, our view was
bounded by beautiful forest hills seldom rising to any great elevation,
thinly wooded, and covered with grass. These hills bounded the plains,
and varied in distance from ten to thirty miles. To the north-east the
country was lowest, but appeared good and open: that part of the plain
near which we encamped was wet and marshy; and the horizontal level of
the whole appeared to warrant the supposition that at some (perhaps not
distant) period, these vast plains formed chains of inland lakes, which
the washings from the hills have now nearly filled up; as the water at
present does not exceed a few inches in depth, and is only partially
spread on the surface, forming but a moderate proportion of the whole. In
dry seasons there is evidently none: the hills passed over this day were
of a curious species of pudding-stone and freestone. The hills on the
opposite side of the plains were named Melville Hills, in honour of the
first Lord of the Admiralty; and the valley at the extremity of it
leading to Hardwicke's Range, Barrow's Valley, after one of the
secretaries of that board.
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