There was no animal food in the camp.
The whole extent of the mountainous country passed in our two last stages, was of porphyry, with crystals of quartz and felspar in a grey paste; on both sides of it, the rock was granite and pegmatite; and, at the north-west side of the gorge, I observed talc-schist in the bed of the river.
The vegetation of the forest, and along the river, did not vary; but, on the mountains, the silver-leaved Ironbark prevailed.
The general course of the Lynd, from my last latitude to that of the 4th June, was north-west.
Sleeping in the open air at night, with a bright sky studded with its stars above us, we were naturally led to observe more closely the hourly changes of the heavens; and my companions became curious to know the names of those brilliant constellations, with which nightly observation had now, perhaps for the first time, made them familiar.

We had reached a latitude which allowed us not only to see the brightest stars of the southern, but, also of the northern hemisphere, and I shall never forget the intense pleasure I experienced, and that evinced by my companions, when I first called them, about 4 o'clock in the morning, to see Ursa Major.

The starry heaven is one of those great features of nature, which enter unconsciously into the composition of our souls.

The absence of the stars gives us painful longings, the nature of which we frequently do not understand, but which we call home sickness:--and their sudden re-appearance touches us like magic, and fills us with delight.

Every new moon also was hailed with an almost superstitious devotion, and my Blackfellows vied with each other to discover its thin crescent, and would be almost angry with me when I strained my duller eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of its faint light in the brilliant sky which succeeds the setting of the sun.