partly in the hope of falling in with the river beyond, I entered it. I
found this scrub full of holes, that obliged me to pursue a very tortuous
course, impeded as I was too by the rugged stems and branches. I got
through it, only after contending with these impediments for three miles.
The country beyond it looked not at all like that back from the river,
and I turned to the N.E., pursuing that course some miles; then eastward
two miles, and next two miles to the S.E., still without finding any
river; but, on the contrary, scrub in every direction. The sun was
declining, and I turned at last to the S.W., and in that direction
reached an extensive open forest, beyond which I saw at length the river
line of trees. I continued to ride S.S.W., and finally south, until I saw
our cattle grazing, and the tents, without having regained first, as I
wished, my outward track. On the bank of the Balonne we found an
apparently new species of ANDROPOGON with loose thin panicles of purplish
flowers, and in the scrub I passed through, in my ride, I found a
CASUARINA, indeterminable in the absence of flowers or fruit. It produces
a gall as large as a hazel nut. Thermometer at sunrise, 37°; at noon,
90°; at 4 P.M., 94°; at 9, 57°;--with wet bulb, 53°.

6TH APRIL.--Mr. Kennedy's eyes being still very bad, I could not proceed,
as the survey of our route was very important, in order to keep our
account of longitude correctly. The necks of the cattle were much galled,
and I therefore the more willingly halted another day. It was not without
some impatience, however, that I did so, as we were approaching a point
whence I could set out with horses to the north-west, and leave the
cattle to refresh in a depôt on this fine river, which afforded an
excellent base for our exploratory operations, in the wholly unknown
regions immediately beyond it. This line of exploration I had anxiously
wished to pursue in 1831, when obliged to return from the Karaula or
Upper Barwan; and whatever had since been ascertained about that part of