Saturday.—Morning cold. Reached Messrs. Keane & Orr’s (native name Kulkyane), where we remained till early on Monday morning. The natives at this station were numerous, and some of them apparently intelligent, but in appearance disfigured, if that is possible, by the circles of white clay which they had drawn round their eyes and noses. This, we are informed, is symbolical of mourning for deceased relatives—perhaps the unfortunate children who are, it is said, so often slaughtered. Monday.—Steamed on to wooding station, in a picturesque country with high banks. At four a.m. on Tuesday, September 13th, the Captain reported a comet in sight, which, after considerable incredulity on behalf of some of our party, was at length acknowledged to be a most brilliant meteor. Euston Township (Nowong), so called after the Grafton family, we reached at ten a.m. It is a Government reserve, and seemed a fine clearing, though as yet the settlement is comprised in the Commissioner’s house, an inn, some huts, and a black encampment. Mr. Cole, the Crown Commissioner, received nearly all our party with great politeness, showed the ladies over his quarters—a log house, not impervious to the weather, but otherwise comfortable, if not pretty, which, indeed, none of the stations are; he then produced some wine, eggs, and lastly a salad. Here we obtained a sight of some newspapers, the latest from Melbourne, of the 23rd of the previous month. The ladies were invited to see two specimens of the “lowen” or “luanna,” a bird resembling in some degree the pheasant of Europe, and also reckoned of delicious flavour.[14] The peculiarity of these birds is, that the hen does not hatch her own eggs, but buries them in layers of sand, whence, after a little time, the process is effected by heat. The Commissioner—whose district contains about 70,000 sheep, 15,000 or 16,000 head of cattle, and nearly 300 horses—complains of the impossibility of completing his establishment of white police, notwithstanding the liberal allowance of the Government to troopers, which amounts to 5_s._ 6_d._ daily, in addition to rations and quarters; he is, however, he tells us, to be joined by a European sergeant immediately. From this point, Euston, there was, until lately, a post to Sydney and back, which, while it lasted, was conducted with rapidity; the floods, however, have been so troublesome, that it has been recently given up. The blacks here were numerous, and two-thirds of them, at least, disfigured with their mourning marks. Some of them were dressed in uniform as police troopers attached to the Commissioner. Mr. Cole, with a Mr. Morey, who has 7,000 sheep contiguous to the Government reserve (twenty-five square miles), came on board to dinner, when our commander’s champagne flowed freely; they afterwards accompanied us up the river some miles. The comet was reported very brilliant about four a.m.