be a fair prospect of
reaching a large extent of open level plain that came within two or three
miles of the camp in that direction. To the east and south-east the range
was lofty and mountainous, while to the south and south-west stretched
open grassy plains, occasionally interrupted by bold detached hills,
apparently of the same formation as the Hamersley Range. On descending to
the camp, I started a fragment of rock of a few tons weight, which rushed
with fearful velocity towards the deep gorge in which the horses were
feeding. After carrying all before it for a quarter of a mile, it made a
clear spring over a cliff 200 feet in depth, and plunged into the waters
below with a sound like thunder, inducing a belief at the camp that a
large portion of cliff had fallen. Fortunately it did not produce an
estampede, which I had known to have been caused on another occasion by a
similar occurrence. Camp 19.

Latitude 22 degrees 15 minutes; longitude 118 degrees 4 minutes 30
seconds.

13th June.

Availing ourselves of the observations made yesterday, we succeeded,
after a hard scramble of two hours, in getting through the remaining
portion of the range, our horses having learned to climb like goats, or
they never would have accomplished the passage. The plain appears to have
a considerable elevation above those to the northward, and is drained by
several deep breaks through the Hamersley Range. Resuming a
south-south-west course to latitude 22 degrees 26 minutes 32 seconds, we
passed at first over some very stony land, yielding little else besides
triodia and stunted acacia; but for the last six or seven miles was a
rich alluvial clay, covered with very fair pasture, and water was found
in abundance in pools in the bed of a watercourse coming from the
south-east. Camp 20.

Latitude 22 degrees 26 minutes 58 seconds.

14th June.

On our first landing at Nickol Bay the nights had been very mild, but we
now began to feel them cold and bracing. This was partly owing to the
increased elevation of the country we were now travelling over; the
south-east wind coming off the mountainous country was very keen, and
almost frosty early in the morning. Our course this day was at first over
tolerably good country, which gradually became more and more rocky, the
ridges increasing in elevation until the aneroid barometer fell to 27.33,
giving an altitude of 2400 feet above the sea. Night overtook us in a
deep rocky ravine, where we h