For a couple of hours we followed the tortuous windings of the track, without we white men having the faintest conception where we were going, though the troopers and Lizzie declared that we were pushing straight through. At length a ray of sunlight became visible, and in a few minutes we emerged from the sombre depths of the jungle, and found ourselves on the banks of a splendid river, the Mackay. Traces of blacks were seen in every direction, the white sand being covered with their foot-prints. Abandoned gungales were plentiful on the opposite bank, which was clear of scrub, and whilst we were eating the damper and beef with which each of the party was provided, Lizzie espied a thin column of smoke at no great distance. We approached it as cautiously as possible, taking advantage of every shrub that offered a cover, and finally, lying down and worming our way through the grass on all fours, a mode of progression that is in itself particularly fatiguing and objectionable, but not without excitement, for we never knew the moment when we might chance to put our hands on a dormant snake, or find ourselves sprawling over a nest of bulldog ants. We were successful in completely surprising the camp, which consisted entirely of gins and piccaninnies, all the males, as usual, being out hunting. The gins spoke quite a different language from that of the Hinchinbrook and Herbert River people, and Lizzie was a long time before she could make them understand. They seemed to know nothing of any white men, nor, I may say, of anything else in particular. They were ignorant where the Mackay rose, or where it debouched, and could give us no information regarding the waterfall we saw on the distant range, what river it supplied, or what kind of country was between us and the hills. Altogether they were a most unsatisfactory lot; and having rummaged their camp without finding any suspicious articles, and threatened them with wholesale destruction if they gave warning of our approach to any other tribe, by either smoke signals or messengers, we departed, much disgusted.