May 24.--A day of rest and preparation. The country seems to rise hereabouts and to be more broken, the ridges stony: the dwarf timber and brush very thick. In searching for the horses this morning several kangaroos and emus were seen, also the huts of a tribe of natives recently inhabited. May 25.--The horses much refreshed, except one which is unable to carry any thing; his load was therefore obliged to be distributed among the rest, already too heavily laden. At nine o'clock set forward on our journey. At two we arrived at the base of a hill of considerable magnitude, terminating westward in an abrupt perpendicular rock from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet high. The country we passed over was of the most miserable description; the last eight miles without a blade of grass. The acacia brushes grow generally on a hard and clayey soil evidently frequently covered with water, and I consider that these plains or brushes are swamps or morasses in wet weather, since they must receive all the water from the low ranges with which they are generally circumscribed. It is a remarkable feature in the hills of this country that their terminations are generally perpendicular westward, rising from the lower grounds round from south-west to north-west very gradually; their terminating rocky bluffs are usually two or three hundred feet high. I include in these observations not only the single detached hills, but the points of the ranges. This hill was named Mount Aiton. The country having been recently burnt, some good grass was found for the horses a little to the south-west. We therefore stopped for the night, and ascended the face of the mount for the purpose of looking around: a very large brown speckled snake was killed about half way up, which, in the absence of fresh provisions, was afterwards eaten by some of the party. On arriving at the summit we had an extensive prospect in every direction; the country was most generally level, but rose occasionally into gentle eminences bounded by distant low ranges from the south south-west to the north-west. The most considerable of these ranges were named PEEL'S RANGE, and GOULBURN'S RANGE: a very lofty hill, distant at least seventy miles, was named MOUNT GRANARD. Interspersed through the country, bounded by those ranges, were several large tracts entirely devoid of wood; these are however, I fear, only a repetition of the acacia plains of which we had lately been but too abundantly favoured. From south-west by south round to north-east were some low broken hills, with some to the east-south-east of greater magnitude; but their distance was so great as to appear but faintly in the horizon. Upon the whole the country appeared more open and somewhat better, particularly in the immediate vicinity of our station to the south-west. There were not the smallest signs of any stream, neither is-ere there any fires in the direction we had to take. Three or four fires were seen in the