Some natives had joined us in the morning, and acted as our guides; or it is more than probable that we should have continued our course along the river, and got enbarrassed among impediments that were visible from our elevated position; for it was evident that the range we had ascended terminated in an abrupt precipice on the river, that we could not have passed.  The blacks suffered beyond what I could have imagined, from cold, and seemed as incapable of enduring it as if they had experienced the rigour of a northern snow storm.

The morning of the 2nd December was cloudy and lowering, and the wind still hung in the N.W.  There was truly every appearance of bad weather, but our anxiety to proceed on our journey overcame our apprehensions, and the animals were loaded and moved off at 7 a.m.  The rain which had fallen the evening previous, rendered travelling heavy; so that we got on but slowly.  At 11, the clouds burst, and continued to pour down for the rest of the day.  On leaving the creek we crossed the spine of the range, and descending from it into a valley, that continued to the river on the one hand, and stretched away to the N.W. on the other, we ascended some hills opposite to us, and moved generally through open, undulating forest ground, affording good pasturage.

Smoking an opossum.

One of the blacks being anxious to get an opossum out of a dead tree, every branch of which was hollow, asked for a tomahawk, with which he cut a hole in the trunk above where he thought the animal lay concealed.  He found however, that he had cut too low, and that it had run higher up.  This made it necessary to smoke it out; he accordingly got some dry grass, and having kindled a fire, stuffed it into the hole he had cut.  A raging fire soon kindled in the tree, where the draft was great, and dense columns of smoke issued from the end of each branch as thick as that from the chimney of a steam engine.  The shell of the tree was so thin that I thought it would soon be burnt through, and that the tree would fall; but the black had no such fears, and, ascending to the highest branch, he watched anxiously for the poor little wretch he had thus surrounded with dangers and devoted to destruction; and no sooner did it appear, half singed and half roasted, than he seized upon it and threw it down to us with an air of triumph.  The effect of the scene in so lonely a forest, was very fine.  The roaring of the fire in the tree, the fearless attitude of the savage, and the associations which his colour and appearance, enveloped as he was in smoke, called up, were singular, and still dwell on my recollection.  We had not long left the tree, when it fell with a tremendous crash, and was, when we next passed that way, a mere heap of ashes.

Accidents.

Shortly before it commenced raining, the dogs started an emu, and took after it, followed by M’Leay and myself.  We failed in killing it, and I was unfortunate enough to lose a most excellent watch upon the occasion, which in regularity was superior to the chronometer I had with me.