In the course of the day the stirculia heterophylla was very abundant, and we remarked that the cypresses were those originally known as the callitris australis, and not of either of the other two species, which were common in the neighbourhood of the Lachlan.  The brushes and scrubs were the only places that afforded any thing to the researches of the botanists; the open lands being covered with grass, and the shrubs being of acacias whose species had been already often seen on this side of the Blue Mountain range.

August 10.—­The morning proved clear and mild, and at nine we again proceeded; as it was impossible to remain in a place that did not afford us any water, and not good grass.

The country continued open forest land for about three miles, the cypress and the bastard box being the prevailing timber; of the former many were useful trees.  We seemed neither ascending nor descending, but travelling on somewhat of an elevated plain.  The broom-grass was very luxuriant, being four or five feet high; the soil, as before, a light, red, sandy loam.  To this open tract succeeded three miles of barren brush land, covered with clumps of small cypresses, iron barks, and acacias; the slightest elevation or ascent was always stony, and in one or two places large masses of granite rock were observed.  We have hitherto seen no other signs of this being an inhabited country than the marks usually made by the natives in ascending the trees, and none of these were very recent.  It is probable that they may see us without discovering themselves, as it is much more likely for us to pass unobserved the little family of the wandering native, than that our party, consisting of so many men and horses, not travelling together, but sometimes separated a mile or two, should escape their sight, quickened as it is by constant exercise in procuring their daily food.

At the end of the brush we came upon a large chain of ponds, the fall of water in which being north, induced us to believe that the Macquarie could not be far distant:  we proceeded down them about a mile, when the situation offering us all we could wish for, we halted for the night, it being past two o’clock, determining to remain here to-morrow for the sake of the horses.

The country on the east side of this chain of ponds was again an open forest as far as we could see in that direction; which however was not very far, as we were nearly on a level.  I rode down the ponds Six or seven miles, hoping to fall in with their junction with the river.  Two or three miles from our halting-place the ground became very scrubby, and was much over-run with brush and small pines; there were marks of flood in the watercourse of the ponds, from eight to ten feet high.  I saw several shags, ducks, herons, cranes, and other birds that frequent low or watery situations, but the night coming on obliged me to return.