o
ascend it. At 9.57 a.m., having packed the horses, we started. At 10.58
came east and by south up along the left bank of a watercourse with a
thin margin of box-trees for three miles. At 11.12 Jemmy and I left the
party and came south for three-quarters of a mile across a plain to the
right bank of the river where, halting, I made the meridian altitude of
the sun 75 degrees 6 minutes, latitude 20 degrees 31 minutes. At 12.40
came half a mile north-east. At 1.12 come along a plain in a south-east
and by east direction one and a half miles to a deeper and broader outlet
from the river than the one we crossed in the morning. Overtook our party
here and assisted to unsaddle and unpack. The horses were then driven
into the stream and swum across. Afterwards we pulled the saddles and
packs across with a rope and encamped. We adopted the following plan for
taking them over the river. We attached the articles to the middle of a
rope and passed one end of it over the fork of a tree on the southern
bank; one end of the rope being pulled with sufficient force to keep the
goods clear of the water, and the other end pulled with much greater
force, the goods were safely landed on the southern bank. This would have
been accomplished easily if we had had a pulley, but as we had none it
took hard pulling to make the rope travel. The country we passed over has
the same rich character as the land I described yesterday. Distance today
four and a quarter miles.

March 7. Camp 21, situated on right bank of Flinders River.

Knowing that plains with just a sufficiency of trees for firewood and
shade has proved better than any other for pastoral purposes, this
country delighted me; but I must say it would please me more if there
were a few high hills in the distance. I was however charmed with the
landscape around the camp this morning. In the foreground I saw fine box,
excoecaria, and other trees festooned with beautiful cumbering creepers,
and beyond them the horses feeding on a fine grassy plain extending to
the north and eastward to apparently distant blue mountains. As the day
advanced this picture unfortunately lost a portion of its beauty by the
disappearance of anything like mountains in the distant horizon. We
started at 8.14 a.m.; and at 11.40 came east for ten miles along a plain
behind the wooded country near the river, but further back it is either
covered with roley-poley and pigweed or with young grasses which I am
afraid are