ff to cliff was awfully magnificent; whilst the rugged
mountains which had just before looked golden in the bright light of the
setting sun were now shrouded in gloomy mists, and capped with dark
clouds from which issued incessant and dazzling flashes of lightning.

During this grand and terrific elemental convulsion our little boat was
driven powerless before the blast. The impenetrable forests of mangroves
which clothed the riverbanks obliging us to run far up the stream until
at last a convenient opening enabled us to land upon the southern shore.

DELUSIVE APPEARANCE ON THE ROCKS.

We had not long landed when the rain ceased and, as we found several
natural caverns in the rock and plenty of dead mangrove trees, we
proceeded to make ourselves comfortable for the night; but the men soon
reported that they saw the smoke of a native fire close to us, and
Captain Browse and myself, under the conviction that such was the case,
darted with Mr. Walker to endeavour to gain an interview. But, as we
proceeded over the rocks, the smoke appeared gradually to retire, always
keeping about the same distance from us: and we at last ascertained that
what had appeared to us to be smoke was nothing but the rising vapour
occasioned by the cold rain falling on sandstone rocks, which had during
the whole day been exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun.

We had now become so much accustomed to sleeping without any covering,
and upon hard rocks, that we should not have minded our exposure had it
not been for the rain which fell during the night and beat in under the
rocks, beneath which we had crept for shelter. The cold air of the
morning awoke us long before daylight; and Mr. Walker and myself, having
explored the country to the southward and climbed a high hill from which
we had an extensive view, we started on our return to the schooner. In
proceeding down the river we landed on an island, situate at the
south-eastern extremity of St. George's Basin, just where the river runs
into it. The presence of large dead trees on this island, which had
evidently been swept down the river in the time of floods and washed up
far above the usual water-mark, showed that Prince Regent's River is
subject to the same sudden inundations as all other rivers in Australia
which I have seen. During our passage down the river we saw no extent of
good land in any one place.

STATE OF THE STOCK.

For the next few days we had almost uninterrupted bad