ld be despatched.
This snake was of a brown colour, red spotted on the belly, about six
feet long, and five inches in circumference. I had never before known any
Australian snake to attack a party, but we had certainly brought the
attack on ourselves. We made a good cut on our former circuitous route
when tracing down the river Nive, and arrived at our former bivouac at an
early hour. This was fortunate, as all the ponds, formerly full of good
water, had, in the interim, dried up; and I proceeded to cross the
scrubby range, by pursuing a straight direction towards Mount Pluto. But
some magnetic influence so deranged my compass, that, on reaching the
crest of the range, I found that mountain bore nearly east instead of N.
E. N. I saw three of my fixed points, however, by which, with my pocket
sextant, I could ascertain our true position, which proved to be very
wide of my intended course. It was, like many other accidental
frustrations of my plans in this journey, an aberration that did us good,
for we had thereby avoided the bad scrub formerly passed through, and
also a rocky part of the range. We next descended into a valley in which,
after following down a dry watercourse two miles, we found a fine pond of
water, exactly as the sun was setting. This day I had shot a curious
bird, somewhat resembling a small turkey, in a tree. The feathers were
black; the head was bare and red. This fowl was apparently of the
galinaceous tribe. The flesh was delicious, and afforded a most timely
dinner to the party. A numerous body of natives had followed our former
track across the rocky ranges we traversed this day, as appeared by their
foot-marks, and Yuranigh also discovered, in the same manner, that three
natives had this morning preceded us on our return; nevertheless we saw
none of these denizens of the woods.

6TH OCTOBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A. M., 48 deg.. Height above the sea, 696
feet. This day we hoped to rejoin the party at the camp of the Pyramids;
but the journey was long, and it included an ascent of Mount Pluto, from
which I had still to observe some important angles. I marked this
bivouac, with 70 cut on a tree, the two last being, respectively marked,
71 and 72, as already stated; these numbers continuing the series from
LXIX, my lowest camp on the Belyando.

The scrub is thick about these volcanic ranges, but on the downs and
plains of Central Australia, that impediment disappears. My men and
myself were in rags fr