ling over the hardest that we could
this day find for a mile and a half, I discovered a spacious lake on the
left, bounded on the east by some fine-looking green hills. These
separated it from a plain where I found the ground firm, and also from
several smaller lakes to the right of my intended route. I accordingly
proceeded along the ground between them, and I found that it bore the
wheels much better than any we had recently crossed. The lakes were
however still precisely similar in character to those of which we had
already seen so many. The water in them was rather too brackish to be fit
for use, and the ridges were all still on the eastern shores. From the
highest of these ridges the pinnacled summits of the Victoria range
presented an outline of the grandest character. The noble coronet of
rocks was indeed a cheering object to us after having been so long half
immersed in mud. We had passed between the lakes and were proceeding as
lightly as we could across the plain when down went the wheel of a cart,
sinking to the axle, and the usual noise of flogging (cruelty which I had
repeatedly forbidden) and a consequent delay of several hours followed.

ESCAPE AT LAST FROM THE MUD.

In the meantime I rode to some grassy hills on the right, and found
behind them on the south-west another extensive lake on which I saw a
great number of ducks. Its bed consisted of dark-coloured mud and the
water was also salt. The green hills before mentioned were curiously
broken and scooped out into small cavities much resembling those on
Green-hill Lake near Mount Arapiles. The plain rose gradually towards the
east to some scrubby ground nearly as high as these hills and, in a fall
beyond this scrub, I found at length to my great delight a small hollow
sloping to the south-east and a little water running in it.

ENCAMP ON A RUNNING STREAM.

Following it down I almost immediately perceived a ravine before me, and
at a mile and a quarter from the first fall of the ground I crossed a
chain of fine ponds in a valley, where we finally encamped on a fine
stream flowing to the south-west over granite rocks.*

(*Footnote. Consisting of white felspar and quartz and silvery mica.)

FINE COUNTRY.

Thus suddenly were we at length relieved from all the difficulties of
travelling in mud. We had solid granite beneath us; and instead of a
level horizon the finely rounded points of ground presented by the sides
of a valley thinly wooded and thickl