we came
to a piece of open forest at the foot of a hill, which was covered with
ironstone-pebbles. Here we encamped without water; but, having passed
good water-holes not four miles distant, I sent Mr. Calvert and Brown to
fetch some, whilst I and Charley went forward to examine the country. On
my way to some ranges which I had seen to the eastward, I fell in with a
dry watercourse, and, following it down for about half a mile from the
camp, discovered a well-filled water-hole. The watercourse was found to
join a creek with a deep and very wide bed, but dry. Muscle-shells
strewed in every direction, and other appearances, indicated that, during
the wet season, the whole country must be very swampy. The course of the
creek was to the N. N. W., and it is joined by watercourses from the
right and left; all now quite dry. After having followed the creek for
about twelve miles, until sunset, without coming to the end of the scrub
through which it trended, we were compelled to retrace our steps; in
attempting which my companion, Charley, lost the track, but my good
little horse, Jim Crow, guided us to the camp, which we reached about
eleven o'clock. Mr. Calvert and Brown had not yet returned; although the
report of their guns had been heard several times. The night was
extremely cold, notwithstanding we were encamped under the shelter of
trees: and it was therefore evident that we were at a considerable
elevation above the level of the sea. The Box-tree of Jimba-flats, the
Bricklow--in short, the whole vegetation of the scrubby country, west of
Darling Downs, were still around us; and the Moreton Bay ash (a species
of Eucalyptus)--which I had met with, throughout the Moreton Bay
district, from the sea coast of the Nynga Nyngas to Darling Downs--was
here also very plentiful.

Dec. 16.--Our cattle and our horses, with the exception of those we had
used the night before, had strayed in search of water; but Charley found
them on the sow-thistle plains, beyond our last camp. Messrs. Calvert,
Murphy, and Brown, came in early this morning; they had lost their way in
the dark, in consequence of remaining too long at the water-hole. They
informed me that they had passed the night on an open piece of forest
ground along a creek. This intelligence induced me to examine the
locality: I therefore went with Brown, and found the creek, with a deep
sandy, but dry bed, full of reeds; its direction being from south by west
to north by east. I