mean more than that its seasons are uncertain, and that its summers are
of comparatively long duration.

In reference to its rivers also, the Murray is an exception to the other
known rivers of this extensive continent. The basins of that fine stream
are in the deepest recesses of the Australian Alps--which rise to an
elevation of 7000 feet above the sea. The heads of its immediate
tributaries, extend from the 36th to the 32nd parallel of latitude, and
over two degrees of longitude, that is to say, from the 146 degrees to
the 148 degrees meridian, but, independently of these, it receives the
whole westerly drainage of the interior, from the Darling downwards.
Supplied by the melting snows from the remote and cloud-capped chain in
which its tributaries rise, the Murray supports a rapid current to the
sea. Taking its windings into account, its length cannot be less than
from 1300 to 1500 miles. Thus, then, this noble stream preserves its
character throughout its whole line. Uninfluenced by the sudden floods to
which the other rivers of which we have been speaking are subject, its
rise and fall are equally gradual. Instead of stopping short in its
course as they do, its never-failing fountains have given it strength to
cleave a channel through the desert interior, and so it happened, that,
instead of finding it terminate in a stagnant marsh, or gradually
exhausting itself over extensive plains as the more northern streams do,
I was successfully borne on its broad and transparent waters, during the
progress of a former expedition, to the centre of the land in which I
have since erected my dwelling.

As I have had occasion to remark, the rise and fall of the Murray are
both gradual. It receives the first addition to its waters from the
eastward, in the month of July, and rises at the rate of an inch a day
until December, in which month it attains a height of about seventeen