There was not the least appearance of natives; nor was bird or animal of any description seen during the day, except a solitary native dog.  Nothing can be more melancholy and irksome than travelling over wilds, which nature seems to have condemned to perpetual loneliness and desolation.  We seemed indeed the sole living creatures in those vast deserts.

The plains last travelled over were named Molle’s Plains, after the late lieutenant-governor of the territory; and those on the opposite side, Baird’s Plains, after the general to whom he once acted as aide-de-camp, and whose glory he shared.  The naming of places was often the only pleasure within our reach; but it was some relief from the desolation of these plains and hills to throw over them the associations of names dear to friendship, or sacred to genius.  In the evening three or four small fish were caught.

July 1.—­Dark cloudy morning, with showers of rain.  However desirous I was to proceed, I found that to do so would greatly injure the horses.  Towards noon it cleared up, permitting me to take a tolerable observation, to ascertain our situation.  I consider ourselves as peculiarly fortunate in being blessed with so dry and favourable a season; since all attempts to penetrate into the country during rain, or after an inundation of the stream, must have failed.  I am quite convinced that at this place, when the banks are overflowed, the waters must extend from thirty to forty miles on each side of the stream, as we are that distance from any eminence.  If there had been any nearer to the north, west, or south, we must have seen it from those extensive plains on which we have travelled for the last three days; for looking eastward, we can distinctly perceive Macquarie’s Range, from which we estimate ourselves to be about thirty-five miles west.  The stream was sounded in various places during the day, and its greatest depth never exceeded seven feet; the bottom and sides a stiff bluish clay.  Latitude observed 33. 32. 22.  S., longitude 145. 5. 50.  E.; variation of the compass 6. 49.  E.

July 2.—­At nine o’clock we again set forward down the stream; our course, as it has hitherto done, lay over apparently interminable plains, nothing relieving the eye but a few scattered bushes, and occasionally some dwarf box-trees:  the view was boundless as the ocean, neither eminence nor hillock appearing.  On the edges of the stream alone, and the lagoons that occasionally branched from it, was any thing like timber to be seen.  The occasional openings on the stream enabled us to perceive, that the north side was in every respect similar to the south:  I was so much deceived, by the semblance of the plains on the other side to sheets of water, that I twice went down to the edge of the stream to assure myself to the contrary.