We were not prepared for the beauty sometimes exhibited by the Australian landscape. The Journal compares it to a succession of Ruysdaels. "The masses of rock, lofty trees, shining sands, and patches of water in wild confusion; the mimosæ, the Anthistiria-grass, of a red brown, contrasting most harmoniously with the light green bushes; all those again so opposed to the dark hues of the casuarinæ, mimosæ, and rifted rocks, that a Ruysdael or a Gainsborough might have found an inexhaustible stock of subjects for the pencil." This wild travelling has its discomforts, and now and then its dangers; but it is a perpetual source of exciting sensations. Every step is new, and every day's journey may place the traveller within some region of unexpected value or beauty. One of the hopes of the Journalist, on commencing this portion of his travels, was to discover a chain of hills to the northwest, from which he might trace the course of a river to the Gulf. At last this chain rose before his eyes. "The most interesting sight to me was that of blue pics at a great distance to the northwest, the object of all my dreams of discovery for years. _No white man had before seen them._ There we might hope to find the division of the waters still undiscovered--the pass to Carpentaria still unexplored. I called this hill Mount First-View, and descended, delighted with what I had seen from its rocky crest." The latitude was 27°, yet the thermometer at sunrise was but at 45°, at noon 68°, and at 9 P.M. 45°. The captivations of the scenery were equal to the delights of the temperature, though so near the tropics.--"An Australian morning is always charming. Amid those scenes of primæval nature it seemed exquisitely so. The barita or gymnoskina, the organ-magpie, was here represented by a much smaller bird, whose notes, resembling the softest breathings of a flute, were the only sounds that met the ear. What the stillness of evening adds to such sounds in other climes, is felt more intensely in the stillness of morn in this." The forms of the vegetation, both tree and shrub, are picturesque, and the colours are finer still:--"Instead of autumnal tints, there is a perpetual blending of the richest hues of autumn with the most brilliant verdure of spring; while the sun's welcome rays in a winter's morning, and the cool breath of the woods in a summer morning, are equally grateful. This was in the depth of the Australian winter, and, which sounds oddly to the European ear, in the 'merry month of June.'"