direct upon
the level plain over which he has to go, and after passing some pretty
scenery on the banks of a creek close to which the road runs, and
crossing an open interval, he enters the belt, through which it will take
him four hours to penetrate. This singular feature is a broad line of
wood, composed in the lower part of Eucalyptus dumosa, a straggling tree,
growing to an inconsiderable height, rising at once from the ground with
many slender stems, and affording but an imperfect shade. About the
latitude of 34 degrees the character of the Murray belt changes--it
becomes denser and more diversified. Pine trees on sandy ridges, Acacia,
Hakea, Exocarpi, and many other shrubs form a thick wood, through which
it is difficult to keep a correct course. Occasionally a low brush
extends to the cliffs overlooking the valley of the Murray, but it may be
said, that there is an open space varying in breadth from half a-mile to
three miles between the Murray belt and the river. It is a flat table
land about 250 or 300 feet above the level of the sea, the substratum
being of the tertiary fossil formation. The surface is a mixture of red
sand and clay, mixed with calcareous limestone in small rounded nodules.
The very nature of this soil is heating, and the consequence is that it
has little herbage at any one time. There is however a succession of
vegetation, especially during the spring months, which, from the fact of
the cattle being particularly fond of it, must I should imagine be both
sweet and nutritious.

Any one who has ever been on the banks of the Murray will admit that it
is a noble river. The description I have already given supersedes the
necessity of my dwelling on it here. In another place I shall have to
speak of it, not in a commercial point of view, but as a line of
communication between two distant colonies, and the important part it has
acted in the advancement of the province of South Australia. As a
commercial river, I fear it will not be of practical utility. To prove
this, it may be necessary for me to observe that the Murray runs for more
than five degrees of latitude through a desert. That it is tortuous in
its course, and is in many places encumbered with timber, and its depth
entirely depends on the seasons. The difficulties, therefore, that
present themselves to the navigation of the central Murray are such as to
preclude the hope of its ever being made available for such a purpose,
even admitting t