APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.

The country was a most thirsty-looking level, the low brushwood on which
cracked and snapped as we walked through it, with a brittle dryness that
testified how perfectly parched-up was everything. A single spark would
instantly have wrapped the whole face of the country in one sheet of
fire. Slight blasts of heated withering air, as if from an oven, would
occasionally strike the face as we walked along; sometimes they were
loaded with those peculiar and most agreeable odours that arise from
different kinds of gums. Still the white eucalyptus and the palm, wore in
comparison with the other vegetation, an extraordinary green appearance,
derived probably from the nightly copious falls of dew, which is the only
moisture this part of the continent receives during the present season.
The birds we observed were common to other parts of the continent, being
a few screaming cockatoos, parrots, and quails, and near the water a
small white egret. There was nothing of interest to recall our memories
to this first visit to a new part of Australia, save a very large ant's
nest, measuring twenty feet in height. This object is always the first
that presents itself whenever my thoughts wander to that locality.

As the boat was not provisioned for the time it would take to explore all
the openings we had discovered, and as the capabilities of Port Darwin
were sufficiently great to require the presence of the ship, I determined
on returning immediately to Shoal Bay.

VISIT FROM THE NATIVES.

During the time we were absent, some of our people who had been on shore,
received a visit from a party of natives, who evinced the most friendly