lowest of them (with the exception of there being on them no
cotton and cabbage saltbush) resembled in appearance, and from their
having salty herbage in abundance, some parts of the Murrumbidgee plains.
The higher parts are more thickly grassed and are slightly wooded with
stunted timber, consisting of box, apple, white-gum, cotton, and other
trees. The cotton-trees I had never seen before; but Mr. Hennie told me
they had been found by Dr. Mueller when in Mr. Gregory's party in the
expedition to Northern Australia.

On this country we found abundance of waterholes, some of which were
divided from each other by sandstone dykes and contained fresh, and
others brackish, water. Near the waterholes, at the most conspicuous
points of timber on our route, we marked trees. The north-easterly
waterhole I called Mueller Lake. It is a fine long sheet of water which
is brackish but not to an extent to render it undrinkable.

Before we reached any water on our way from the ship, we observed, at
some distance from us, several blacks, of whom three gins and three
children we overtook in their camps. These we tried to persuade by signs
to lead us to the nearest water, but they were so extremely terrified
that they clung to each other and would not move, except to point in the
direction in which by our proceeding a short distance we found it
ourselves.

On the 17th October the ship was taken alongside of the western bank of
the river, and, a landing stage having been made, twenty-three of the
horses were walked on shore and driven up to Frost's Ponds; the remaining
two from their being too weak were kept on board. A few of the horses
after their voyage were in good order, and the most of the others, which
were in such low condition from their insufficient allowance of water
from Moreton Bay to Torres Strait, now showed, from their having plenty
of water since their reshipment at Hardy's Islands, that they were in a
thriving state.

On the 20th Messrs. Bourne, Moore, Frost, and two troopers started up the
river on a shooting and land excursion. I accompanied them to near
Frost's Ponds where the horses were running, and I was glad to find the
horses were doing well, as I expected they would do, from the herbage of
the plains in that neighbourhood being of the most fattening character.
Late in the evening our sportsmen returned and gave a most glowing
description of about eight miles of the plains they had crossed in going
to and retu