Rising ground appeared on the horizon about four miles to the north-west, and an intervening plain of firm clay covered with atriplex and salsolae rose towards it from the very margin of the reedy basin of the river. Although anxious to see the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee, curiosity irresistible led me to the rising ground, while Mr. Stapylton traced the supposed line of the Lachlan and the overseer conducted the carts and party westward. Unlike the hills I had seen on the limits of interior plains elsewhere, the ridge I now visited consisted of the same rich loam as the plains themselves. VIEW NORTHWARD. It was connected with other low ridges which extended in a north-western direction into a country finely diversified with hill, dale, and patches of wood, but in all probability at that time entirely without water. The dry bed of a lake lay in a valley immediately north of the hills on which I stood. A few trees of stunted appearance alone grew in the hollow. On the top of this ridge I ate a russet apple which had grown in my garden at Sydney, and I planted the seeds in a spot of rich earth likely to be saturated with water as often as it fell from the heavens. DIFFICULTIES IN FINDING EITHER OF THE RIVERS OR ANY WATER. Southward I could see no trace of the Lachlan, and I hastened towards the highest trees where I thought it turned in that direction. I thus met the track of the carts at rightangles and galloped after them as they were driving through scrubs and over heaths away to the westward. When I overtook them I found that Mr. Stapylton had crossed over to them and told Burnett to say to me that he had not seen the Lachlan. SEARCH FOR THE MURRUMBIDGEE. A row of lofty yarra trees appeared to the southward and, as I expected to find the Murrumbidgee among them, I directed my course thither, travelling to the westward of south as well as any appearance of water would allow. We passed through a scrub which swarmed with kangaroos, bronze-wing pigeons, and cockatoos; also by a rather singular hollow resembling the bed of a dry lake, in which we found several grasses apparently new and very beautiful,* together with a low but wide-spreading bush which bore a fruit resembling a cherry in size and taste, but with a more elongated stone. (*Footnote. A Poa near P. australis, R. Br. and Bromus australis of R. Br.) After descending into what I had thought was the bed of a river we found unequal ground and saw, at a distance, patches of reeds, also lofty yarra trees growing all about. On reaching the reeds we found they filled only very slight hollows in the surface and, after passing through them, we crossed another firm plain with atriplex and salsolae. No river was to be seen, but another line of trees bounded this plain, exactly like those on the banks of streams, and on reaching it I felt confident of finding water; but on the contrary there was only an open forest of goodly trees without the least indication of it.