integrisve crassis ad axillas
fasciculatis, floribus paucis axillaribus subsessilibus, calycis labiis
integris inferiore minore, antherarum calcare longiore loculum
superante.--Near P. ASPALATHOIDES: leaves two or three lines long,
remarkably thick. Calyx strongly ribbed. The specimens found were past
flower, having only a few fragments remaining of the corolla and stamens.
The whole plant appears very viscid and retains when dry a very strong
smell of thyme.]

There ended all our troubles with the sandstone gullies, for we soon
entered open forests, and crossed a grassy valley gently sloping to the
eastward, in whose bosom we found a fine deep rocky pond. Beyond that
valley we arrived at open downs of the richest soil, and of an extent not
to be embraced by the eye at any one point of view. The finest sorts of
grass were fast springing up, and curious herbs were beginning to shoot
from the rich alluvium in the vallies. We encamped on these downs, about
ten miles from our former camp by the Claude, XLIX.

1ST SEPTEMBER.--The morning clear and frosty; Thermometer 25 deg.. All
prospects of rain had vanished "into thin air." The scene now around us
was as different as could well be imagined, from that which surrounded us
at the same hour yesterday. As we proceeded, we crossed a hill quite
clear of trees, which commanded a view over an extent of similar country,
large enough for a county. The broken summits, just appearing above the
placid horizon of undulating downs, had formerly looked like a range to
us, and were certainly highly ornamental to the scenery; but no stranger
could have supposed these features to have been only the highest parts of
such a broken sandstone country as that from which we had just emerged.
The plains, or rather, I should say, downs, for they were nowhere level
but everywhere gently undulating, were first seen in white streaks high
above us, when we first perceived them through the scrubs. These downs
consisted of the richest sort of black mould, on which grew luxuriantly,
ANTHISTIRIA and PANICUM LOEVINODE. But the surface in general was loose,
resembling that of a field after it had lain long in fallow. Herbs in
great variety were just emerging from the recently watered earth, and the
splendid morning did ample justice to the vernal scene. The charm of a
beginning seemed to pervade all nature, and the songs of many birds
sounded like the orchestral music before the commencement of any
theatrica