collected a great number of most beautiful flowers, which grow in
profusion in this otherwise desolate glen. I was literally surrounded
by fair flowers of every changing hue. Why Nature should scatter such
floral gems upon such a stony sterile region it is difficult to
understand, but such a variety of lovely flowers of every kind and
colour I had never met with previously. Nature at times, indeed,
delights in contrasts, for here exists a land "where bright flowers
are all scentless, and songless bright birds." The flowers alone would
have induced me to name this Glen Flora; but having found in it also
so many of the stately palm trees, I have called it the Glen of Palms.
Peculiar indeed, and romantic too, is this new-found watery glen,
enclosed by rocky walls, "Where dial-like, to portion time, the
palm-tree's shadow falls."

While we were travelling to-day, a few slight showers fell, giving us
warning in their way that heavier falls might come. We were most
anxious to reach the northern mouth of the glen if possible before
night, so heartily tired were we of so continuously serpentine a
track; we therefore kept pushing on. We saw several natives to-day,
but they invariably fled to the fastnesses of their mountain homes,
they raised great volumes of smoke, and their strident vociferations
caused a dull and buzzing sound even when out of ear-shot. The
pattering of the rain-drops became heavier, yet we kept on, hoping at
every turn to see an opening which would free us from our
prison-house; but night and heavier rain together came, and we were
compelled to remain another night in the palmy glen. I found a small
sloping, sandy, firm piece of ground, probably the only one in the
glen, a little off from the creek, having some blood-wood or red
gum-trees growing upon it, and above the reach of any flood-mark--for
it is necessary to be careful in selecting a site on a watercourse,