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.

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