The thermometer was seldom under 114 degrees at noon, and rose still higher at 2 p.m.We had no dews at night, and consequently the range of the instrument was trifling in the twenty-four hours.

The country looked bare and scorched, and the plains over which we journeyed had large fissures traversing them, so that the earth may literally be said to have gasped for moisture.

The country, which above the cataract had borne the character of open forest, excepting on the immediate banks of the river, where its undulations and openness gave it a park-like appearance, or where the barren stony ridges prevailed below that point, generally exhibited alternately plain and brush, the soil on both of which was good.

On the former, crested pigeons were numerous, several of which were shot.

We had likewise procured some of the rose-coloured and grey parrots, mentioned by Mr.Oxley, and a small paroquet of beautiful plumage; but there was less of variety in the feathered race than I expected to find, and most of the other birds we had seen were recognised by me as similar to specimens I had procured from Melville Island, and were, therefore, most probably birds of passage.
ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, AND THE RIVER.
As we neared Mount Harris, the Macquarie became more sluggish in its flow, and fell off so much as scarcely to deserve the name of a river.