s on the eastward, whence alone it could come, I must have
remained in doubt as to the direction of the fall of the waters in that
channel. The banks of these watercourses on the plains, as I have
elsewhere observed, are the highest parts of the ground. This higher
ground appeared here to rise towards the west, along the banks of the
brook which, flowing also westward, seemed to run up hill.

ROCKS OF NUNDEWAR.

The soil was mixed with pebbles of vesicular trap, probably amygdaloid
with the kernels decomposed, and containing particles of olivine. There
were also pebbles of a quartzose conglomerate, and others of decomposed
porphyry, the base consisting of granular felspar, with crystals of
common felspar. It is not improbable that good millstones might be
obtained from the range of Nundewar. The grass was fortunately much
better here than at the last camp.

February 20.

During the night a heavy thunderstorm broke over us, and was accompanied
by so much rain that the ground was too soft in the morning for us to
proceed. I accordingly halted till one o'clock. We then succeeded in
crossing the brook immediately above our encampment, and continued, first
southward to avoid a scrub, and then almost east. On a portion of open
ground the progress of the party was slow enough, but in an open kind of
scrub, where I hoped to have got on better, the ground proved to be still
less favourable, for water lay in hollows which at any season might have
been soft and were then impassable. The cattle at length could draw no
longer, the carts sinking to the axles; by attaching a double team
however and drawing each cart successively forward to our intended camp,
we effected the transit of the whole by sunset, and fixed our home for
the night on a hard bank of gravel beside Meadow Ponds, and to my no
small satisfaction, on the line of our former track. We had travelled
five miles only, but to hit this point, which was exactly at an angle of
that route, was a desideratum with me, and we had now before us a line of
marked trees leading homewards, and relieving me from all further anxiety
as to the line to be pursued.

The ponds were now united by a stream of beautifully clear water, and
were so far different from those we had left that morning in which the
water had a clayey or muddy colour. During this day's journey we killed a
snake measuring seven feet in length and eight inches in diameter; and
the fat of this reptile was considered