The spot I chose to halt at for the night was at the foot of a lofty precipice of rocks, from which a spring gushed forth. Those who had accompanied us from the camp now returned, leaving me and the two soldiers alone and about to penetrate some distance into an utterly unknown country. We were each provided with ten days' provisions and, confident in the steadiness and courage of my men, I had not the slightest anxiety--feeling that as long as we maintained a cool and determined bearing the natives would make no attacks upon us that we could not repel. We soon erected a little hut of bark, then kindled a fire and cooked our supper, consisting of tea and two white pigeons which we had shot; and by the time our repast was finished it was nearly dark. My companions laid down to sleep: I remained up for a short time to think alone in the wilderness, and then followed their example. ASCENT OF A GLEN. December 18. At break of day we were again upon our route, which lay up the valley we had slept in; but, as each of us carried ten days' provisions and a day's water, besides our arms, the progress we made in a tropical climate, when thus laden, was necessarily slow and laborious; but the beauty of the landscape and the solicitude we all felt to see more of this unexplored land cheered us on. TABLELAND AT THE SUMMIT. Having at length reached the tableland which this valley drained we found ourselves in the midst of a forest, differing widely from anything we had before seen. The soil beneath our feet was sandy and thickly clothed with spinifex (a prickly grass) which in spite of our thick trousers slightly but continually wounded our legs. The trees were lofty and some of them of considerable circumference; but the trunks of all were charred and blackened by constant fires: this circumstance, and their slight and thin, yet strikingly graceful foliage, gave them a most picturesque appearance. Every here and there in the wood rose lofty and isolated pinnacles of sandstone rock, fantastic in form, and frequently overgrown with graceful creeping and climbing plants which imparted to them a somewhat of mystery and elegance. In other parts rose the gigantic ant-hills so much spoken of by former visitors of these shores; and in the distance we saw occasionally the forms of the timid kangaroos, who stole fearfully away from the unknown disturbers of their solitude. ANOTHER VALLEY. But when we arrived at the extremity of the tableland I felt somewhat disappointed at beholding a deep narrow ravine at my feet, precisely resembling in character the one we had left, and beyond this a second sandstone range, wooded as that on which we stood; in about half an hour we gained the bottom of the ravine and found that a rapid stream ran through it, which, being the first we had discovered, I named the Lushington, after the father of my associate in this expedition, and in accordance with a determination I had made before starting.