July 22.—­The river had risen during the night upwards of a foot, and was now about eight feet from the banks; its breadth from thirty to fifty feet, whilst its apparent usual channel could not exceed from fifteen to twenty.  The calls of the natives were heard this morning on the opposite side of the river.  At nine o’clock we again proceeded up the river, which to-day trended east by north.  About four miles east from our last station, we ascended a stony mount being near the north-east extreme of Goulburn’s Range:  the country to the north-east and round to east was without any eminences of magnitude, but several rising chains of low hills were scattered over the general surface of the country; they were mostly bare of trees, being stony and barren.  It is impossible to imagine a worse tract of country than that through which our route lay this day; to the very edges of the stream, it was a barren acacia scrub intermingled with cypresses and dwarf box-trees.  The flats were uniformly swampy, and covered with bushes (rhagodea); the hills instead of grass were clothed with gnapthalium.  We repeatedly saw the river in our course, but I could find no eligible place to cross it, as the trees which would have suited our purpose for bridges were now, in consequence of the fresh or flood, in the very middle of the stream.  The banks where the rising grounds came immediately on the river were high and of a red loamy clay, and when this was the case the opposite banks were seen to be low in proportion:  when we halted for the night, they were not above five or six feet, and I think there must have been from ten to twelve feet more water in the bed of the stream than usual.  Bad as the travelling was even close to the stream, it was still worse about two miles back from it; several small scrubs of the eucalyptus dumosa and prickly shrubs were passed through by the men who had taken out the dogs in search of game; and from the hill we first ascended, we observed several very extensive scrubs to the northward, of the same description.  At half past three we halted for the night, having gone about eleven miles.

July 23.—­The river had fallen a little during the night.  At nine o’clock we again set forward:  the country became extremely low and marshy, far more so than any we had passed over east of Macquarie’s Range.  These marshes extended so far southerly that to have gone round them would have led us far from our purposed course without answering any useful purpose, and although we judged that at first they might not extend above three or four miles back, yet we soon had reason to change that opinion.  The river had led us upon a general course nearly east about six miles, when about half a mile from the bank southerly, a very extensive lake was formed, extending about east-south-east and west-north-west from three to four miles, and being about a mile and a half wide.  Excepting the sheet of water on the north side near the termination of the stream, this was the only one we had seen that