The Banks Of The River Are Much Lower Than Yesterday, Scarcely Exceeding Twelve Feet High; The Floods Are Low In Proportion, And I Did Not See Any Mark Showing That The Rise Of Water Ever Exceeded A Foot Above The Banks.

The river did not offer the slightest obstruction, and was from twenty to twenty-four feet deep.

There is probably from two to three feet more in it than usual; the breadth varies considerably, in some places not more than sixty feet, in others two hundred. All the lagoons (though very deep), in the neighbourhood of the river are quite dry, and appearances indicate that the country has not been flooded for years. Emus and kangaroos are in abundance; but we have lately caught no fish, owing most likely to the coldness of the weather: various birds altogether unknown to us were seen; and although the leading plants were the same as those found through nearly the whole of Australia, new ones were daily met with. The river has continued inclining to the northward: its course to-day was north-north-west.

June 26. - The country this day was as various as can be imagined; low but not level; in some places covered with the acacia pendula, chenopodeae, and polygonum juncium; in others, with good gum and box trees. The whole, with few exceptions, appeared liable to flood. Four or five miles back the country imperceptibly rises, and is free from river floods; but the hollows, proceeding from the inequalities of its surface, are in rainy seasons the reservoirs of the land floods. The whole country was now perfectly dry, and must have been so for a long period: it would indeed have been impossible, had the season been wet, to have kept company with the boats. The river itself continues undiminished, and is a fine stream, with nothing to impede the navigation; its windings, however, are very considerable. The banks appear lower by nearly three feet than yesterday: there are still no marks of flood rising upon the land above a foot on either side: the depth of the stream is from twenty to twenty-four feet, breadth from sixty to one hundred and sixty, and its current is about a mile and a half per hour. The river has fallen yesterday and to-day nearly eighteen inches.

June 27. - The river continues to fall. We had gone about five miles through a country as low and brushy as usual, when we were agreeably surprised with the view of a small hill about a mile to the eastward: we hastened to it, in hopes that we should find that the country rose to the north-east; we however saw nothing but another hill still higher, about three miles to the north-north-west, in the direction of the river. The hill, or rather rock, we had just quitted, was about a quarter of a mile long by half a quarter broad, and about seventy feet high; it was nothing but granite, having the sides and summit covered with broken pieces of a fine and very compact species of the same mineral. We named it Welcome Rock; for any thing like an eminence was grateful to our sight. From the summit of the hill seen to the north-north-west our view was very extensive; but nothing indicated either a speedy change of country or a termination of the river. To the westward, the land was a perfect level, with clear spaces or marshes interspersed amidst the boundless desert of wood. To the east, a most stupendous range of mountains, lifting their blue heads above the horizon, bounded the view in that direction, and were distant at least seventy miles, the country appearing a perfect plain between us and them. From north-west to north-east nothing interrupted the horizontal view, except a hill similar to the one we were on, about five miles distant to the north-north-west. Extended as was our prospect, it did not afford much room for satisfactory anticipation; and there was nothing that gave us reason to believe that any stream, either from the east or west, joined the river for the next forty miles at least. The hill from which this view was taken was named Mount Harris, after my friend, who accompanied the expedition as a volunteer; that to the north-north-west, Mount Forster, after Lieutenant Forster, of the Navy; and the lofty range before mentioned to the eastward was distinguished by the name of Arbuthnot's Range, after the Right Hon. C. Arbuthnot, of His Majesty's Treasury. The two first mentioned hills are entirely of granite, from one and a half to two miles long, by half a mile to one mile wide: their formation must be considered a most singular geological phenomenon, detached as they are by an immense space from all mountainous ranges, and rising from the midst of a soft alluvial soil. Small pieces of granite were in several places thrown into heaps, as if by human means; and their whole surfaces were covered with similar pieces, detached from the solid mass to which they had once belonged. If I might hazard a conjecture, I should attribute to them a volcanic origin: I think, on examination, their constituent parts will be found to have undergone the action of fire, by which they have been fused together. To those conversant in the structure of the earth, and with the means used by nature to accomplish her purposes, these singular hills may offer a subject for curious inquiry. The natives appear numerous in these regions of apparent desolation: we fell in with several parties in the course of the day, in the whole probably not less than forty, and many fires were seen to the north. Being a mile or two ahead of our party in a thick brush, I came suddenly upon three men; two ran off with the greatest speed; the third, who was older and a little lame, first threw his firestick at me, and next (seeing me still advance) a waddie, but with such agitation, that though not more than a dozen paces distant, he missed both me and my horse.

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