5TH OCTOBER.--Soon after we left our bivouac, I saw in the grass before me, a large snake. This was rather a novelty to us, being almost the first we had seen in these northern regions of Australia. I dismounted, and went forward to strike it with a piece of wood. Yuranigh did the same, both missed it, when it unexpectedly turned upon us, took a position on higher ground beside a large tree, then descended with head erect, moving nimbly towards the horses, and the rest of the party. The deadly reptile glided straight to the forefeet of my horse, touched the fetlock with his head, but did not bite; then passed to the hind legs and did the same, fortunately the horse stood quietly. The snake darted thence towards one of the men, who was about to throw a stick at him, and was next in the act of pursuing Yuranigh, when Graham gave him a charge of small shot, which crippled his movements until he could be despatched. This snake was of a brown colour, red spotted on the belly, about six feet long, and five inches in circumference. I had never before known any Australian snake to attack a party, but we had certainly brought the attack on ourselves. We made a good cut on our former circuitous route when tracing down the river Nive, and arrived at our former bivouac at an early hour. This was fortunate, as all the ponds, formerly full of good water, had, in the interim, dried up; and I proceeded to cross the scrubby range, by pursuing a straight direction towards Mount Pluto. But some magnetic influence so deranged my compass, that, on reaching the crest of the range, I found that mountain bore nearly east instead of N. E. N. I saw three of my fixed points, however, by which, with my pocket sextant, I could ascertain our true position, which proved to be very wide of my intended course. It was, like many other accidental frustrations of my plans in this journey, an aberration that did us good, for we had thereby avoided the bad scrub formerly passed through, and also a rocky part of the range. We next descended into a valley in which, after following down a dry watercourse two miles, we found a fine pond of water, exactly as the sun was setting. This day I had shot a curious bird, somewhat resembling a small turkey, in a tree. The feathers were black; the head was bare and red. This fowl was apparently of the galinaceous tribe. The flesh was delicious, and afforded a most timely dinner to the party. A numerous body of natives had followed our former track across the rocky ranges we traversed this day, as appeared by their foot-marks, and Yuranigh also discovered, in the same manner, that three natives had this morning preceded us on our return; nevertheless we saw none of these denizens of the woods.