13TH SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. the thermometer stood at 38 deg.; the height above the sea was found to be 1659 feet. I verily believed that THIS river would run to Carpentaria, and I called it the Nive, at least as a conventional name until the native name could be ascertained, in commemoration of Lord Wellington's action on the river of that name; and, to the tributary from the north, I gave the name of Nivelle. Pursuing the united channel downwards, we traversed fine open grassy plains. The air was fragrant from the many flowers then springing up, especially where the natives had burnt the grass. Among them were MORGANIA GLABRA; EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII; a singular little POLYGONUM with the aspect of a TILLOEA; two very distinct little FRANKENIAS[*], and a new scabrous HALORAGIS with pinnatifid leaves.[**] The extensive burning by the natives, a work of considerable labour, and performed in dry warm weather, left tracts in the open forest, which had become green as an emerald with the young crop of grass. These plains were thickly imprinted with the feet of kangaroos, and the work is undertaken by the natives to attract these animals to such places. How natural must be the aversion of the natives to the intrusion of another race of men with cattle: people who recognise no right in the aborigines to either the grass they have thus worked from infancy, nor to the kangaroos they have hunted with their fathers. No, nor yet to the emus they kill FOR their fathers ONLY; these birds being reserved, or held sacred, for the sole use of the old men and women! [* F. SCABRA (Lindl. MS.); undique scabro-tomentosa, foliis linearibus margine revolutis non ciliatis, floribus solitariis pentameris, calycibus patentim pilosis. F. SERPYLLIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.); tomentosa hispida, foliis oblongis planis longe ciliatis, floribus solitariis subcapitatis pentameris, calycibus patentim hispidis.] [** H. ASPERA (Lindl. MS.) caule angulato foliis fructuque scabris, foliis alternis oppositisque linearibus acutis apice pinnatifidis, floribus distanter spicatis monoicis pendulis, stigmatibus plumosis, fructu subgloboso.] The river pursued a course to the southward of west for nine miles, but it turned afterwards southward, eastward, and even to the northward of E. After tracing it thus twenty-two miles, without seeing any water in its bed (which was broad, but every where choked with sand), we were obliged to encamp, and endure this privation after a very warm and laborious day. Where the natives obtained water themselves, quite puzzled Yuranigh, for we passed by spacious encampments of theirs, and tracts they had set fire to, where trees still lay smoking.