wam across to the opposite side, where he immediately
hid himself. We could by no means induce him to show himself; he was
probably the lonely being whom we had scared away from the fire the day
before. In the afternoon, however we surprised a family of six natives,
and persuaded them to follow us to our halting place. My boy understood
them well; but the young savage had the cunning to hide the information
they gave him, or, for aught I know, to ask questions that best suited his
own purposes, and therefore we gained little intelligence from them.

Every day now produced some change in the face of the country, by which it
became more and more assimilated to that I had traversed during the first
expedition. Acacia pendula now made its appearance on several plains
beyond the river deposits, as well as that salsolaceous class of plants,
among which the schlerolina and rhagodia are so remarkable. The natives
left us at sunset, but returned early in the morning with an extremely
facetious and good-humoured old man, who volunteered to act as our guide
without the least hesitation. There was a cheerfulness in his manner,
that gained our confidence at once, and rendered him a general favourite.
He went in front with the dogs, and led us a little away from the river
to kill kangaroos, as he said. At about two miles we struck on an
inconsiderable elevation, which the party crossed at the S.W. extremity.
I ascended it at the opposite end, but although the view was extensive, I
could not make out the little hill of granite from which I had taken my
former bearings, and the only elevation I could recognise as connected
with them, was one about ten miles distant, bearing S. 168 W. I could
observe very distant ranges to the E.N.E. and immediately below me in that
direction, there was a large clear plain, skirted by acacia pendula,
stretching from S.S.E. to N.N.W. The crown and ridges of the hill on which
I stood, were barren, stony, and covered with beef-wood,
the rock-formation being a coarse granite. The drays had got so far ahead
of me that I did not overtake them before they had halted on the river at
a distance of ten miles.

INFORMATION FROM A NATIVE.

The Morumbidgee appeared, on examination, to have increased in breadth,
and continued to rise gradually. It is certainly a noble stream, very
different from those I had already traced to their termination. The old
black informed me that there was another large river flowing to t