As The Sun Was Setting, I Resolved Upon Encamping In An Open Plain, Although Without Water, Except What We Carried In Our Large Stew-Pot.

Charley, who had been sent forward, had not yet joined us; I, therefore, ordered two guns to be fired, to let him know where we were; he immediately answered us from a short distance, where he lighted up a cheerful fire.

After some time, during which misfortune and carelessness had played us the trick of upsetting our waterpot, Charley arrived with the welcome news that he had found some water-holes in a small creek; we therefore, at moonrise, again saddled our tired animals, and repaired thither.

The day had been exceedingly hot; but the passing shadows of cumuli which formed in the afternoon, occasionally afforded us a delightful relief. The sea breeze was strong, particularly towards evening; but the dense scrub and forest kept it from us during the day.

Oct. 18. - I stopped at the water-holes, to allow our cattle to recover. It was a lovely place. The country around us was very open, and agreeably diversified by small clusters of the raspberry-jam tree. Salicornia and Binoe's Trichinium indicated the neighbourhood of salt water; but the grass was good and mostly young. The creek was shaded by drooping tea-trees and the broad-leaved Terminalia, which also grew scattered over the flats. The water-hole on which we were encamped was about four feet deep, and contained a great number of guard-fish, which, in the morning, kept incessantly springing from the water. A small broad fish with sharp belly, and a long ray behind the dorsal fin, was also caught. It was highly amusing to watch the swarms of little finches, of doves, and Ptilotis, which came during the heat of the day to drink from our water hole. Grallina australis, Crows, Kites, Bronze-winged and Harlequin pigeons, (Peristera histrionica, GOULD), the Rose cockatoo (Cocatua Eos), the Betshiregah (Melopsittacus undulatus), and Trichoglossus versicolor, GOULD, were also visitors to the water-hole, or were seen on the plains. The day was oppressively hot; and neither the drooping tea-trees, nor our blankets, of which we had made a shade, afforded us much relief Clouds gathered, however, in the afternoon, and we had a few drops of rain in the course of the night and following morning. Charley and John had gone out on horseback to obtain some emus, with which the country seemed to abound; they returned, however, at night, without any emus, but brought in about twenty-two whistling and black ducks, one goose and several waders, which they had obtained at a lagoon which was several miles in length, and varied from 50 to 300 yards in breadth, covered with Nymphaeas, and fringed with a dense vegetation; it was surrounded by fine pasture. Never, as they described, had they seen so many ducks and geese together; when they rose, their numbers darkened the air, and their noise was deafening.

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