The opening now widened into a very fine reach, out of which the water was running rapidly, and when we had ascended about a mile I saw large trees, or snags (as they are called by the Americans) sticking up in the bed of the river; as these trees were of a very large size, and evidently had come from a different country to the one we saw upon the river banks, I felt assured that we had now discovered a stream of magnitude, and, the eager expectations which these thoughts awoke in our breasts rendering us all impatient, we hauled down our sail and took to the oars. The bed of the river however became choked with shallows and sandbanks, and when we had ascended it about three miles, the water having shoaled to about six inches, I selected a suitable place for our encampment and prepared to start and explore the country on foot. SURVEY OF MOUTHS OF THIS RIVER AND BABBAGE ISLAND. As soon as all had been made snug I moved up the river with three men. Its banks were here about five feet high; the bed of white sand, and about half a mile across; the centre of the channel was full of salt water, and in breadth about a quarter of a mile. We had not proceeded more than a few hundred yards when we unexpectedly came upon another mouth of the river as large as that upon which we stood, and which ran off nearly west. The river itself appeared to come from the north-east, and we saw salt water still further up than where we were. NATIVES AND A SHARK. Just on the eastern bank of the stream was a clump of small trees and reeds which I walked up to examine with a desire to recognise any trees belonging to known species, but to my horror, on looking into the reeds, I saw what appeared to be a huge alligator fast asleep. The men now peeped at it and all agreed that it was an alligator. I therefore retreated to a respectful and suitable distance and let fly at it with a rifle; it gave, as we thought, a kind of shake, and then took no further notice of us. I therefore took a double-barrelled gun from one of the men and drove two balls through the beast, and now feeling sure it must be dead (for it never moved) I walked up to it, when, upon examination, it turned out to be a huge shark, of a totally new species, which had been left in some hole by the tide where the natives had found and killed it, and, being disturbed by our approach, had run away, first hiding it in this clump of reeds. There were two natives and they had made off right up the bed of the river, taking the precaution to step in one another's tracks so as to conceal if possible their number. CHARACTER OF THE RIVER.