ey of the several channels from
the summit of a high granite hill, we entered the waste of mud at a point
where it did not appear to be more than two miles wide; an hour's
struggle carried us fairly through on to terra firma, only one horse
having to be assisted by the removal of his load. After resting an hour
and a half for dinner, we resumed our route in a south direction, across
an extensive low grassy plain of red clayey loam, passing over a few
rocky ridges at sunset, and at 6 p.m. encamped on a dry creek twenty
yards wide, water being found in some clay-pans in the adjoining plain.
Camp 2.

MAITLAND RIVER.

26th May.

Being Sunday, the camp was only moved a mile further to a fine pool of
water in a river eighty yards wide, with beautiful grassy banks, which I
named the Maitland; it comes from the south-east, and may probably have a
course of sixty miles, coming through a plain five or six miles wide, the
greater part of which is occasionally inundated by floods from the
interior. Cockatoos and other game were plentiful, sixteen of the former
being killed by Mr. Brockman at one shot; they were white, with
orange-tinted feathers in the crest, similar to those on the Murchison
and Gascoyne Rivers. It may be as well here to observe that upon first
starting a regular routine of duty had been established in the party, the
care and loading of five horses being told off to each two of the party,
as they could lift on opposite packs simultaneously, and their being all
numbered, everyone could at once know the loads under his charge. The
night was also divided into eight watches, commencing at 8 p.m. and
ending at 6 a.m.; the duty of the first watch being to cook the bread for
the following day, and the last to have breakfast ready in the morning by
the time it was light enough to see. By this arrangement no time was
lost, and everyone knew what was under his particular charge. Camp 3.

SUDDEN FLOOD.

27th May.

Having determined in the first instance to strike to the westward, with a
view to cutting any large rivers coming from the interior that might
serve to lead us through the rocky hills that hemmed us in in that
quarter, we this morning took a south-south-west by south course to 11.40
a.m. when we crossed a dry stream-bed sixty yards wide, coming out of the
granite ranges to the southward, the country becoming more barren as we
edged upon the spurs of the rocky hills. At 2.0 p.m. we halted on the
banks of ano