Accordingly, Mr. Lefroy and myself started on the expedition, on horseback, taking with us a native boy, and a pack-horse loaded with flour, tea, and sugar, and other necessaries. It will be sufficient to state that we pursued a south-east course, crossing the Hotham, the Williams, and the Arthur rivers, and traversing an indifferent country, but in many places fit for sheep-grazing, before we came to the lake, or sea, of which we were in search. When we arrived at it, we were disappointed to find it not more than six miles long, although the natives, with their usual amount of exaggeration, had increased it to an illimitable ocean. Before descending from the high land to the plain in which the lakes are situated, we caught a distant glimpse of what appeared to be a grand and broad river, pursuing a winding course through a magnificently wooded valley, with its clear bright waters dwindling in the distance to a silvery thread. A nearer examination, however, dispelled the illusion, and the beautiful river turned out to be nothing more than a chain of shallow lakes, situated in a woody valley; and only in very wet seasons flowing from one to another. We determined to follow the chain of lakes eastward, so long as our provisions should last, or as long as our horses could find food for themselves. We proceeded east for six days, passing numberless lakes, and observing that the chain divided, one branch of lakes running north-east, and the other due east. We followed the latter until we came to a lake called Dambeling, by far the largest we had seen, being about fifteen miles long by seven or eight wide, with a good sheep country on its northern bank, and a river, which we called the Lefroy, falling into its eastern end. The river was about thirty yards wide, with a clayey bed, and large fresh-water pools, and flowed from the east, through the worst country we had seen, it being an apparently endless desert, and level to the horizon. We went one day's journey into this inhospitable country, but the want of food for our horses, and our own unprepared state, prevented us from penetrating farther. On our return, we went for two or three days north, on the outskirts of the desert, before we turned westward on our way back to York. The only land we crossed in this expedition was situated on the head of the Hotham and Williams. The area of this country is undoubtedly very great, but its average character is below the York district, although it is well adapted for sheep-grazing.