The water in the river was found to be good and perfectly sweet, and the casks were filled. Among the birds seen was a bell-bird which has "no remarkable plumage but a note not unlike the tinkling of a bell, so that when a number of these birds are collected together the noise they make is similar to that made by the bells of a team of horses." The laughing-bird (whose note can only be compared to the ha! ha! ha! of a hearty laughing companion) was the first to salute the explorers in the morning. The whistling duck, so called because of the whistling noise made with its wings when flying, was shot here, and a grey parrot was caught alive. Mr. Barrallier shot a rare cockatoo.* (* It was stuffed and afterwards given to General Davies, R.A., by Governor King.) The wet weather afterwards gave little chance of meeting with birds, and the explorers made their way through the woods until they reached an extensive level country. This plain extended out of their sight on the one side and on the other was bounded by hills. Paths beaten down by kangaroos crossed and recrossed it. The face of the country was almost everywhere level and productive, free from swamp and secured from inundation. Grant thus describes the journey back to the ship: "We returned to the river-side and ordered the boat to drop lower down a few miles through a forest of stately timber trees. I had a few of them cut down and brought on board...I brought Governor King specimens of light woods and a species of sassafras discovered by my second mate...On our way down the river we stopped at the place where we had passed the preceding night and found our fire still burning. To this spot we gave the name of The Halfway House, being halfway up the river." The commander now revisited Churchill's Island: "I found my people had cleared the spot I had laid out for a garden, and that there was nothing wanting but to prepare the ground to receive such seeds as I should choose to plant...It was no easy matter...for we had neither hoe nor spade with us...however, we were in possession of a coal shovel which, though it was thin and much worn, served the purpose.