August 31. - This morning I sent the overseer back to the depot with the
cart and two horses, whilst I and the native boy proceeded on our route
on horseback, taking also a man leading a pack-horse to carry water for
us the first day. Following down the watercourse, we passed through some
imposing scenery, consisting of cliffs from six to eight hundred feet in
height, rising perpendicularly from their bases, below which were
recesses, into which the sun never shone, and whose gloomy grandeur
imparted a melancholy cast to the thoughts and feelings, in unison with
the sublimity of the scene around.
After travelling twelve miles from the camp, we got clear of the hills,
and found an open country before us to the north; through this we
proceeded for ten miles further, still following the direction of the
watercourse, and halting upon it for the night, after having made a stage
of twenty-two miles. We had tolerable grass for the horses, but were
obliged to give them water from the kegs.
At this place I was much astonished to see four white cockatoos, flying
about among the gum-trees in the watercourse, and immediately commenced a
narrow search for water, as I knew those birds did not frequently go far
away from it:
