some remarkable sand-hills.  Figuratively speaking, they appeared like islands amidst the alluvial deposits, and were as pure in their composition as the sand on the sea-shore.  They were generally covered with forest grass, in tufts, and a coarse kind of rushes, under banksias and cypresses.  We found a small fire on the banks of the river, and close to it the couch and hut of a solitary native, who had probably seen us approach, and had fled.  There cannot be many inhabitants hereabouts, since there are no paths to indicate that they frequent this part of the Morumbidgee more at one season than another.

On the 9th, the river fell off again to the westward, and we lost a good deal of the northing we had made the day before.  We journeyed pretty nearly equidistant from the stream, and kept altogether on the alluvial flats.  As we were wandering along the banks of the river, a black started up before us, and swam 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.