I Named This Very Singular Feature Mount Carnarvon, Or The Sentinel, As Soon I Found

"The mountain there did stand T sentinel enchanted land."

The night was cold; mercury down to 26 degrees. What little dew fell became frosted; there was not sufficient to call it frozen. I found my position here to be in latitude 26 degrees 3', longitude 132 degrees 29'.

In the night of the 1st September, heavy clouds were flying fastly over us, and a few drops of rain fell at intervals. About ten o'clock p.m. I observed a lunar rainbow in the northern horizon; its diameter was only about fifteen degrees. There were no prismatic colours visible about it. To-day was clear, fine, but rather windy. We travelled up the creek, skirting its banks, but cutting off the bends. We had low ridges on our right. The creek came for some distance from the south-west, then more southerly, then at ten miles, more directly from the hills to the west. The country along its banks was excellent, and the scenery most beautiful - pine-clad, red, and rocky hills being scattered about in various directions, while further to the west and south-west the high, bold, and very rugged chain rose into peaks and points. We only travelled sixteen miles, and encamped close to a pretty little pine-clad hill, on the north bank of the creek, where some rocks traversed the bed, and we easily obtained a good supply of water. The grass and herbage being magnificent, the horses were in a fine way to enjoy themselves.

This spot is one of the most charming that even imagination could paint. In the background were the high and pointed peaks of the main chain, from which sloped a delightful green valley; through this the creek meandered, here and there winding round the foot of little pine-clad hills of unvarying red colour, whilst the earth from which they sprung was covered with a carpet of verdure and vegetation of almost every imaginable hue. It was happiness to lie at ease upon such a carpet and gaze upon such a scene, and it was happiness the more ecstatic to know that I was the first of a civilised race of men who had ever beheld it. My visions of a former night really seemed to be prophetic. The trend of the creek, and the valley down which it came, was about 25 degrees south of west. We soon found it became contracted by impinging hills. At ten miles from camp we found a pool of water in the bed. In about a couple of miles farther, to my surprise I found we had reached its head and its source, which was the drainage of a big hill. There was no more water and no rock-holes, neither was there any gorge. Some triodia grew on the hills, but none on the lower ground. The valley now changed into a charming amphitheatre. We had thus traced our Birthday Creek, to its own birthplace. It has a short course, but a merry one, and had ended for us at its proper beginning. As there appeared to be no water in the amphitheatre, we returned to the pool we had seen in the creek. Several small branch creeks running through pretty little valleys joined our creek to-day. We were now near some of the higher cones of the main chain, and could see that they were all entirely timberless, and that triodia grew upon their sides. The spot we were now encamped upon was another scene of exquisite sylvan beauty. We had now been a month in the field, as to-morrow was the 4th of September, and I could certainly congratulate myself upon the result of my first month's labour.

The night was cold and windy, dense nimbus clouds hovered just above the mountain peaks, and threatened a heavy downpour of rain, but the driving gale scattered them into the gelid regions of space, and after sunrise we had a perfectly clear sky. I intended this morning to push through what seemed now, as it had always seemed from the first moment I saw this range, a main gap through the chain. Going north round a pointed hill, we were soon in the trend of the pass; in five miles we reached the banks of a new creek, running westerly into another, or else into a large eucalyptus flat or swamp, which had no apparent outlet. This heavy timber could be seen for two or three miles. Advancing still further, I soon discovered that we were upon the reedy banks of a fast flowing stream, whose murmuring waters, ever rushing idly and unheeded on, were now for the first time disclosed to the delighted eyes of their discoverer.

Here I had found a spot where Nature truly had

"Shed o'er the scene her purest of crystal, her brightest of green."

This was really a delightful discovery. Everything was of the best kind here - timber, water, grass, and mountains. In all my wanderings, over thousands of miles in Australia, I never saw a more delightful and fanciful region than this, and one indeed where a white man might live and be happy. My dreams of a former night were of a verity realised.

Geographically speaking, we had suddenly come almost upon the extreme head of a large water course. Its trend here was nearly south, and I found it now ran through a long glen in that direction.

We saw several fine pools and ponds, where the reeds opened in the channel, and we flushed up and shot several lots of ducks. This creek and glen I have named respectively the Ferdinand and Glen Ferdinand, after the Christian name of Baron von Mueller. (The names having a star * against them in this book denote contributors to the fund raised by Baron Mueller* for this expedition. - E.G.) The glen extended nearly five miles, and where it ended, the water ceased to show upon the surface.

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