The soil beneath our feet was sandy and thickly clothed with spinifex (a prickly grass) which in spite of our thick trousers slightly but continually wounded our legs.

The trees were lofty and some of them of considerable circumference; but the trunks of all were charred and blackened by constant fires: this circumstance, and their slight and thin, yet strikingly graceful foliage, gave them a most picturesque appearance.
Every here and there in the wood rose lofty and isolated pinnacles of sandstone rock, fantastic in form, and frequently overgrown with graceful creeping and climbing plants which imparted to them a somewhat of mystery and elegance.

In other parts rose the gigantic ant-hills so much spoken of by former visitors of these shores; and in the distance we saw occasionally the forms of the timid kangaroos, who stole fearfully away from the unknown disturbers of their solitude.
ANOTHER VALLEY.
But when we arrived at the extremity of the tableland I felt somewhat disappointed at beholding a deep narrow ravine at my feet, precisely resembling in character the one we had left, and beyond this a second sandstone range, wooded as that on which we stood; in about half an hour we gained the bottom of the ravine and found that a rapid stream ran through it, which, being the first we had discovered, I named the Lushington, after the father of my associate in this expedition, and in accordance with a determination I had made before starting.
Mustard (one of the men with me) being ill, I determined to halt here for breakfast and, having completed this meal, I was sorry to find that he was still too unwell to proceed; such however being the case I was compelled to halt for the day: leaving Coles therefore to take care of him, I strolled off to explore the valley alone.

Except in being much larger it differed in no respect from the first in which we encamped, and I found that within about half a mile below the spot where I had left the men it terminated in a salt-water inlet, nearly choked up with mangroves.
On returning to them I found Mustard somewhat better; to our annoyance however heavy rain set in, accompanied by thunder and lightning; and as we had no shelter but what some overhanging rocks afforded us we passed a very uncomfortable night.
December 19.
Mustard was still not quite well; we therefore started late and travelled slowly, keeping nearly in a south-east direction.

We thus gradually ascended the second sandstone range, the summit of which was a tableland, at this point about half a mile wide.
GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA.
We here remarked a very curious circumstance.