resembling Oxley's Tableland and D'Urban's group,
but the day was hazy, and I looked in vain for any indication of water.
The heights towards the south-west appeared too detached also to promise
any; more resembling islands in a sea, or pinnacles, only half-emerged
from a deluge, so level was the general surface. Towards the north-west
however the heights did seem connected, and had the appearance of being
the loftier summits of very distant ranges; especially an eminence
bearing 21 degrees north of west which I named Mount Lyell. There was
also an isolated and remarkable summit which bore 50 1/2 degrees north of
west, to which I gave the name of my friend, Dr. Daubeny. The lower
ground seemed to undulate, but no part of it was intersected by open
plains or any lines of large river trees indicating the permanent
existence of water. On the contrary, as far as I could judge from colour
and outline, the same thick dwarf scrub appeared to be the universal
covering of the land; neither could I distinguish any smoke or other
trace of human inhabitants, nor even the track of a single emu or
kangaroo in that trans-Darling region. Still, it was impossible to
ascertain from the hill whether any streams did flow through the country
beyond, although appearances were by no means in favour of such a
conclusion. Neither could I distinguish from that summit, as I hoped to
do, the ultimate course of the Darling, as the line of large trees upon
its banks continued, as far as I could distinguish, in the same
direction. Another low but extensive range, exactly resembling that to
the eastward of our camp, was visible on the horizon beyond it, and
seemed to be the limit of its bed or basin on the eastern or left bank,
and the range certainly did differ most essentially in its outline from
the hills on the right bank, being the last and lowest termination of the
higher ranges in the east.

MOUNT MURCHISON.

As we descended I named the first hill beyond the Darling ever ascended
by any European after my friend Mr. Murchison, a gentleman who has so
greatly advanced the science of geology. We recrossed the river at the
ford just as the sun was going down, and I had the satisfaction to find
that no natives had visited the camp during my absence.

CHAPTER 2.6.

Natives of the Spitting tribe.
Singular behaviour on the discharge of a pistol.
Conjectures.
Second interview with the Spitting tribe.
Strange ceremonial.
Amusing attempts to stea