Dec. 7.--"Apirk," with seven other natives, visited us again in the morning, and it seemed that they had examined the camp we had last left. They gave us to understand that we could travel safely to the northward, without meeting any other creek. Apirk carried a little pointed stick, and a flat piece of wood with a small hole in it, for the purpose of obtaining fire. I directed my course to a distant mountain, due north from the camp, and travelled seven or eight miles over a large plain, which was composed of a rich dark soil, and clothed with a great variety of excellent grasses. We saw many columns of dust raised by whirlwinds; and again mistook them for the smoke of so many fires of the natives. But we soon observed that they moved in a certain direction, and that new columns rose as those already formed drew off; and when we came nearer, and passed between them, it seemed as if the giant spirits of the plain were holding a stately corrobori around us. They originated on a patch of ground divested of its vegetation by a late fire. There was a belt of forest to the northward, and the current of the sea-breeze coming up the valley of the river from N.N.W. seemed to eddy round the forest, and to whirl the unsheltered loose earth into the air. Towards the river, now to the west of our course, peaks, razor-backed hills, and tents, similar to those we had observed when travelling at the west side of the river on the 3rd December (and probably the same), reappeared. To the east of the mountain, towards which we were travelling, several bluff mountains appeared, which probably bounded the valley of a river flowing to the northward, and disemboguing between the Liverpool and Mount Morris Bay. For the last five miles of the stage, our route lay through forest land; and we crossed two creeks going to the east, and then came to rocky sandstone hills, with horizontal stratification, at the foot of which we met with a rocky creek, in the bed of which, after following it for a few miles, we found water. The supply was small; but we enlarged it with the spade, and obtained a sufficient supply for the night. A thunder-storm formed to the northward, which drew off to the westward; but another to the north-east gave us a fine shower, and added to the contents of our water-hole. A well-beaten foot-path of the natives went down the creek to the south-east. My latitude, according to an observation of Castor, was 12 degrees 11 minutes. We saw the Torres Strait pigeon; a Wallooroo and a red kangaroo (Osphranter Antilopinus, GOULD). The old camps of the natives, which we passed in the forest, were strewed with the shells of goose eggs, which showed what an important article these birds formed in the culinary department of the natives; and, whilst their meat and eggs served them for food, their feathers afforded them a protection against the flies which swarmed round their bodies during the day.