crowned with a bit of rock, on which I longed to plant my theodolite.
After crossing the plain, we entered an open scrub of Acacia pendula
which gradually changed to an open forest, within which I met with a
chain of ponds, and encamped in lat. 26° 46' S. I immediately set out,
with a man carrying my theodolite, for Mount Red Cap, distant from our
camp about six miles. This little red cone had a very singular
appearance, as we approached it from the east. A dark tinted scrub of
flat-topped trees enveloped its base, on the outside of which the light
and graceful Acacia pendula also grew on the grassy plain. I found the
red rock to be the common one of the country, in a state of
decomposition. It was hollowed out by some burrowing animal, whose tracks
had opened ways through the thick thorny scrub, enabling us to lead our
horses to near the top. From the apex, I obtained an extensive view of
the country then before us, in many parts clear of wood to the verge of
the horizon, and finely studded with isolated hills of picturesque form,
and patches of wood. Looking backward, or in the direction whence we had
come, our valley appeared hemmed in by more continuous ridges; and,
towards the extremity of them, I could just recognise Mount First View,
this being one of the distant cones I had seen from it. I took as many
angles as the descending sun permitted, and then retraced our horses'
tracks to the camp. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at 9 P. M., 47°. Height
above the sea, 747 feet.

7TH MAY.--Pursuing a N. W. course, we crossed a fine tract of open
forest, then a plain, beyond which we entered a scrub of Acacia pendula,
in which pigeons and quail were very numerous. Turning northward, now
anxious again to see the river, on approaching this open country, we
found what we considered the highest branch of it, in a chain of ponds
skirting the wood bounding the plains. Halting the party, I continued my
ride a mile and a half further northward, to the summit of a clear ridge.