almost meeting, rendered it impossible to proceed further. Our hopes had
been buoyed up as we advanced, an impression prevailing that we had
discovered a river, from our finding that at low tide the water was
simply brackish. I can only account for this by supposing that there was
an imperceptible drainage of fresh water through the banks.

The highest part of the country we saw was on the south side of one of
the reaches, six miles from the mouth; but even there the utmost
elevation was only ten feet. This rise was marked by a growth of
tolerable-sized eucalypti. Elsewhere the banks were scarcely three feet
above high-water level, and generally fringed with mangroves, behind
which in many places were extensive clear flats, reaching occasionally
the sides of the inlet towards the upper parts, and forming at that time
the resort of large flights of the bronze-winged pigeon.

In many of the reaches we met with flocks of wild ducks, of the white and
brown, and also of the whistling kind. The birds we had not before seen
were a large dark brown species of rail, so wary that I could never get
within shot of it, and a rather small blackbird with a white crest. A few
of the large species of crane, called the Native Companion, were also
seen. The only kind of fish taken was the common catfish.

PARTY OF NATIVES.

Alligators were very numerous for the first fifteen miles as we ascended;
and we saw a party of natives, but did not communicate with them. Their
astonishment at the appearance of such strange beings as ourselves must
have been very great. It could never before have fallen to their lot to
behold any of the white race; and until our presence undeceived them,
they must have been living in happy ignorance that they were not the only