I now took up my own
rifle and just as he turned a point in the rocks I fired, and, although a
very long shot, I struck him far forward in the shoulder. For a moment he
staggered, then turned round and limped up a glen in the hills in quite a
different direction. I had neither time nor strength to follow him, but
on passing the river I found from the tracks that minute made that a
single native had been coming down to the river with the dog, and had
(probably from hearing the shots) turned sharp off to the right and made
his escape into some bushes. This day the weakness of our last sheep
obliged us to kill it.

CONTINUATION OF ROUTE BACK. CHANGE OF TRACK.

April 5.

I continued on our old track this morning until I had passed the other
river, and then, quitting our former route, made a push straight over the
sandstone ridge for our old enemy the marsh, as I felt sure after the
present long continuance of fine weather that it would be now quite
passable. We encamped this night on the sandstone range under a group of
lofty firs, or rather pines.

April 6.

I found a very easy route over the sandstone, quite passable in fine
weather, but after rains, I think, from the marshy nature of the ground,
that it would present some difficulty. The marsh itself was perfectly
passable, could without any difficulty be drained, and consisted of good
and fertile land. A remarkable circumstance connected with it was the
great depth of the beds of its streams, the banks in some places being
fourteen feet above the existing water level, whilst I could observe no
signs of the water having ever risen to that height. In the afternoon I
once more struck our old track, which I quitted again in the evening. We
halted a few hundred yards from two remarkable heaps of stones of the
same kind as those I have before mentioned.

CURIOUS NATIVE MOUNDS OR TOMBS OF STONES.

April 7.

This morning I started off before dawn and opened the most southern of
the two mounds of stones which presented the following curious facts:

1. They were both placed due east and west and, as will be seen by the
annexed plates, with great regularity.

2. They were both exactly of the same length but differed in breadth and
height.

3. They were not formed altogether of small stones from the rock on which
they stood, but many were portions of very distant rocks, which must have
been brought by human labour, for their angles were as sharp as the day
they were