elevation above the sea of our camps thus far on the Narran, seven in
number, was 477 feet; the bed of the river being about 15 feet lower.

[* "And hungry Maukin's ta'en her way To kailyards green, While faithless
snaws ilk step betray Whar she has been." BURNS.]

21ST MARCH.--Proceeded as usual through fine grass, the river coming
favourably round towards the north. At about two miles I found some
traces of horses, and I looked at the river bank for Commissioner
Mitchell's initials, supposing this might be "Congo," where he had forded
the Narran. But we had not reached the latitude of Congo according to his
map. Nevertheless we found here such an excellent dry ford, with gently
sloping banks to a stony bottom, that the two circumstances induced me to
cross the Narran with the party. I travelled west-ward, until meeting
with a dense scrub, I turned towards the friendly Narran, where we
encamped in latitude 29° 15' 31" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at
noon, 97°; at 4 P. M., 101°; at 9, 72°; ditto with wet bulb, 66°.

22D MARCH.--Gave the party a day's rest, prayers being read by the
surgeon, as was usual whenever circumstances admitted of our halting on
Sunday. The bed of the Narran presented in several places the denuded
rock, which seems the basis of all the soil and gravel of the country. At
one place irregular concretions of milk-white quartz, cemented by a
ferruginous basis, was predominant; at another, the rough surface of
compact felspar weathering white presented merely the cavities in which
large rounded pebbles had been imbedded, until the partial decomposition
of the felspar, under the river floods, had exposed them once more to the
action of water. The force of those waters, however, had not been
sufficient to cut a channel through very soft rocks extending right
across their course--a circumstance rather characteristic, perhaps, of a