f
which we had, at half tide, some difficulty in finding a passage for the
boats. The river now widened out a little, and we found the deep water
near the western bank, the appearance of the country remaining unaltered.
We landed to pass the night at a rocky point on the east side of the
river, one mile south from the most western islet of the chain just
described as almost preventing our ascent. The depth of the river at this
point was about twelve feet at low-water; and its breadth some four or
five hundred yards. We found the water fresh at all times of tide, which
here rose only eight feet; being ten feet less than its greatest rise
eight miles nearer the mouth, where the time of high-water at the full
and change of the moon occurs at 4 hours 10 minutes P.M.

This was the first rock formation we had noticed since leaving Point
Torment, a distance of nearly thirty miles; it was a very fine-grained
red sandstone, darkened and rendered heavy by the presence of ferruginous
particles. The appearance of the country now began to improve, the
eastern bank was thickly wooded, and a mile higher up, the western
appeared clothed in verdure. I noticed here the same kind of tree, seen
for the first time behind our last night's bivouac; it was small and
shrubby-looking, with a rough bark, not unlike that of the common elm,
and its little pointed leaf, of a deep, dark green, contrasted with the
evergreen Eucalypti by which it was surrounded, reminded me of the
various tints that give the charm of constant variety to our English
woods, and lend to each succeeding season a distinctive and
characteristic beauty.*

(*Footnote. The diameter of the largest tree of this kind was only eight
inches: it was exceedingly hard, and of a very dark red colour, except a
white rim about an inch in thickness. This wood worked and looked the
best, in a table I had made out of various specimens of woods collected
on the North-west coast of Australia.)

SUFFERINGS FROM MOSQUITOES.

I must be pardoned for again alluding to our old enemies the mosquitoes,
but the reception they gave us this night is too deeply engraven on my
memory to be ever quite forgotten.

NIGHT OF TORMENT.

They swarmed around us, and by the light of the fire, the blanket bags in
which the men sought to protect themselves, seemed literally black with
their crawling and stinging persecutors. Woe to the unhappy wretch who
had left unclosed the least hole in his bag; the perseve