none for ourselves, I sent Alec Ross, Saleh, and Tommy into the hills with the camels to a place about ten miles back, where I had seen a small native well.  They returned the following day, having found a good-sized water-hole, and brought a supply to the camp.  The last two nights were cloudy, and I could get no observations for latitude.  While the camels were away I ascended a hill close by the camp; the scene was indeed most extraordinary, bald and abrupt hills, mounts, and ranges being thrown up in all directions; they resemble the billows of a tempestuous ocean suddenly solidified into stone, or as though a hundred thousand million Pelions had been upon as many million Ossas hurled, and as though the falling masses, with superincumbent weight, falling, flattened out the summits of the mountains low but great.

Our creek, as well as I could determine, seemed to be joined by others in its course north-easterly.  I was surprised to find a creek running in that direction, expecting rather to find the fall of the whole region to the opposite point, as we are now in the midst of the hill-country that forms the watershed, that sends so many rivers into the sea on the west coast.  The hills forming these watersheds are almost uniformly composed of granite, and generally lie in almost parallel lines, nearly east and west.  They are mostly flat-topped, and at various points present straight, rounded, precipitous, and corrugated fronts, to the astonished eyes that first behold them.  A few small water-channels rise among them, and these, joining others of a similar kind, gather strength and volume sufficient to form the channels of larger watercourses, which eventually fall into some other, dignified by the name of a river, and eventually discharge themselves into the sea.  Between the almost parallel lines of hills are hollows or narrow valleys, which are usually as rough and stony as the tops of the hills themselves; and being mostly filled with scrubs and thickets, it is as dreadful a region for the traveller to gaze upon as can well be imagined; it is impossible to describe it.  There is little or no permanent water in the whole region; a shower occasionally falls here and there, and makes a small flood in one or other of the numerous channels; but this seems to be all that the natives of this part of the country have to depend upon.  If there were any large waters, we must come upon them by signs, or instinct, if not by chance.  The element of chance is not so great here as in hidden and shrouded scrubs, for here we can ascend the highest ground, and any leading feature must instantly be discovered.  The leading features here are not the high, but the low grounds, not the hills, but the valleys, as in the lowest ground the largest watercourses must be found.  Hence we follow our present creek, as it must run into a larger one.  I know the Ashburton is before us, and not far off now; and as it is the largest river? in Western Australia, it