fore I ventured to proceed with
my whole party, I determined to examine the country in advance, and
therefore followed up one of the branches of the main creek, in a
northerly direction. In proceeding, the silver-leaved Ironbark forest
soon ceased, and the valley became narrow and bounded by perpendicular
walls of sandstone, composed of coarse grains of quartz, rising out of
sandy slopes covered with Dogwood (Jacksonia) and spotted-gum. The rock
is in a state of rapid decomposition, with deep holes and caves inhabited
by rock-wallabies; and with abundance of nests of wasps, and wasp-like
Hymenoptera, attached to their walls, or fixed in the interstices of the
loose rock. Through a few gullies I succeeded in ascending a kind of
table-land, covered with a low scrub, in which the vegetation about
Sydney appeared in several of its most common forms. I then descended
into other valleys to the eastward, but all turned to the east and
south-east; and, after a long and patient investigation, I found no
opening through which we could pass with our bullocks. Although I
returned little satisfied with my ride, I had obtained much interesting
information as to the geological character of this singular country.

CHAPTER III

RUINED CASTLE CREEK--ZAMIA CREEK--BIGGE'S MOUNTAIN--ALLOWANCE OF FLOUR
REDUCED--NATIVES SPEAR A HORSE--CHRISTMAS RANGES--BROWN'S
LAGOONS--THUNDER-STORMS--ALBINIA DOWNS--COMET CREEK--NATIVE CAMP.

Dec. 1.--I rode to the eastward from our camp, to ascertain how far we
were from the water-hole to which I had intended to conduct my party.
After having ascended the gullies, and passed the low scrub and
cypress-pine thicket which surrounds them, I came into the open forest,
and soon found our tracks, and the little creek for which I had steered
the day before. This creek, however, soon became a rocky gully, and
joined a large creek, trending to the east and south-east. Disheartened
and fatigued, I returned to the camp, resolved upon following down the
course of the Boyd to the south-west, until I should come into a more
open country. On my way back, I fell in with a new system of gullies,
south of the creek I had left, and east of the creek on which our camp
was, and which I had called "The Creek of the Ruined Castles," because
high sandstone rocks, fissured and broken like pillars and walls and the
high gates of the ruined castles of Germany, rise from the broad sandy
summits of many hills on both sides