they were reladen.  We again proceeded easterly, and for upwards of a mile we travelled up to our knees in water and mud:  the horses were here stopped by running waters from the marshes, encircling a spot of comparatively dry ground; they were again unladen, and with the utmost difficulty we got every thing safe over.  Both men and horses were so much exhausted by the constant labour they had undergone, that I determined to halt, in order to restore our baggage to some order.  Our ardent hopes are fixed upon the high lands of Arbuthnot’s Range, which I estimate to be about twenty miles off.  The intermediate country, we fear, will be one continued morass.

August 4.—­Proceeded on our journey.  In the seven miles and a half which we accomplished to-day, the water and bog were pretty equally divided; and a plain covered with the former was a great relief both to men and horses, since an apparently dry brush, or forest, was found a certain forerunner of quicksands and bogs.  The natives appear pretty numerous:  one was very daring, maintaining his ground at a distance armed with a formidable jagged spear and club, which he kept beating against each other, making the most singular gestures and noises that can be imagined:  he followed us upwards of a mile, when he left us, joining several companions to the right of us.  Emus and kangaroos abound, and there is a great diversity of birds, some of which have the most delightful notes, particularly the thrush.

August 5.—­At three o’clock we were obliged to give up all attempts to proceed farther this day; it was with the utmost difficulty we accomplished six miles:  for the last half mile, the horses were not on their legs for twenty yards together.  This, too, was in the middle of an apparently dry forest of iron bark and cypress trees:  the surface gave way but little to the human tread, but the horses were scarcely on it before the water sprang at every step, and the ground sank with them to their girths.  In this dilemma, it was agreed to rest for the night, and in the morning endeavour to proceed to the nearest hill, which appeared to be distant about two miles and a half, with very light loads upon the best track we could find, and then return for the remainder of the baggage and stores.  A foreknowledge of the difficulties we should have to encounter would certainly have prevented me from attempting to reach these mountains; the nature of this country baffles all reasonable expectation and conjecture, and that which appears one thing at a distance, has a quite different form and aspect when more nearly approached.  Neither rivers, brushes, nor marshes, seem to make the least difference in the vegetation of this singular tract:  a dreary uniformity pervades alike its geology and its botany.