The reader will have observed from my description, that the scenery on the banks is picturesque and cheerful, that its trees though of smaller size than those on the Murray, are more graceful and have a denser foliage and more drooping habit, and that the flats contiguous to the stream are abundantly grassy.

I have described the river as I found it, but I would not have the reader suppose that it always presents the same luxuriant appearance, for not many months before this period my persevering friend Mr.Eyre, on a journey up its banks, could hardly find grass sufficient for his horses.

There was not a blade of vegetation on the flats, but little water in the river, and the whole scenery wore a most barren appearance.

Countries, however, the summer heat of which is so excessive, as in Australia, are always subject to such changes, nor is it any argument against their soil, that it should at one season of the year look bare and herbless.

That part of the Darling between Laidley's Ponds and its junction with the Murray, a distance of about 100 miles in a direct line, had not been previously explored, nor had I time to lay it regularly down.