as far as latitude 26 degrees, which the maintenance of its
general course would have enabled me to do in two days, and then to
hasten back to my party, to conduct them to the extreme northern point
attained by the Victoria, and endeavour to prolong the direct route
carried that far, from Sydney towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, by Sir
Thomas Mitchell.

"With this intention I left the camp on the 20th of August, and at twelve
miles found several channels united, forming a fine reach, below which
the river takes a turn to the west-south-west, receiving the waters of
rather a large creek from the eastward, in latitude 25 degrees 3 minutes
0 seconds. In latitude 25 degrees 7 minutes, the river having again
inclined to the southward, impinges upon the point of a low range on its
left, by the influence of which it is turned in one well watered channel
to the west and west by north, for nearly thirty miles; in that course
the reaches are nearly connected, varying in breadth from 80 to 120
yards; firm plains of a poor white soil extend on either side of the
river; they were rather bare of pasture, but they are evidently in some
seasons less deficient of grass. In latitude 25 degrees 9 minutes 30
seconds, and longitude about 143 degrees 16 minutes, a considerable river
joins the Victoria from the north-east, which I would submit may be named
the "Thomson," in honour of E. Deas Thomson, Esquire, the Honourable the
Colonial Secretary. It was on one of the five reaches in the westerly
course of the Victoria that I passed the second night; the river there
measured 120 yards across, and seemed to have a great depth; the rocks
and small islets which here and there occurred in its channel giving it
the semblance of a lasting and most important river; this unexpected
change, however, both in its appearance and course, caused me to return
immediately to my camp for the purpose of conducting my party down such a
river whithersoever it should flow.

"On the 25th August, we resumed our journey down that portion of the
Victoria above described, and made the river mentioned from north-east
three miles above its junction; following it down we found an unbroken
sheet of water in its channel, averaging fifty yards in breadth; we
forded it at the junction, and continued to move down the Victoria,
keeping all the channels, into which it had again divided, on my left. At
about one mile the river there turns to the south-south-west and south,
spre