ne man
keeping a good look-out. I called these, Yuranigh's ponds. Latitude, 24 deg.
19' 2" S.

26TH SEPTEMBER.--At 6 A. M. the thermometer stood at 61 deg.. My horse was
quite leg-weary, and I was very loath to force him on, but one day's
journey further was indispensable. We traversed open plains and passed
through patches of brigalow of an open kind of scrub. The surface was
grassy, but very gravelly; indeed it was, in many places, so devoid of
mould as to resemble a newly Macadamized road,--the fragments being much
of that size, and in general of a reddish colour, consisting, for the
most part, of a red siliceous compound. In a ride of twenty-six miles, we
saw no country much better, and I was obliged to conclude that the left
bank was by no means so good as the country on the right, or to the
northward of the river. We arrived, however, by nightfall, at a goodly
water-course, in which we providentially found a pond, and encamped;
resolved there to rest our horses next day, (being Sunday,) and most
thankful to Him to whom the day was dedicated. Latitude 24 deg. 12' 37" S.
Thermometer, at 6 P.M., 92 deg..

27TH SEPTEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A. M., 68 deg.. On laying down my work on
paper, I found we had made a most favourable cut on the way homewards,
our old bivouac of the 21st inst., being about due east from us, and
distant not quite fifteen miles; the great tributary from the S.E.
passing between, upon which we could depend for a supply of water, if it
should be required.

It would appear that the finer the climate, and the fewer man's wants,
the more he sinks towards the condition of the lower animals. Where the
natives had passed the night, no huts, even of bushes, had been set up; a
few tufts of dry grass only, marked the spot where, beside a small fire,
each person had sat folded up, like the capital letter N; but with the
head reclining on the knees, and the whole person resting on the feet and
thigh-joints, clasped together by the hands grasping each ankle. Their
occupation during the day was only wallowing in a muddy hole, in no
respect cleaner than swine. They have no idea of any necessity for
washing themselves between their birth and the grave, while groping in
mud for worms, with hands that have always an unpleasant fishy taint that
clings strangely to whatever they touch. The child of civilization that
would stain even a shoe or a stocking with one spot of that mud, would
probably be whipt by the nu