JUGION CREEK.
I arrived long after dark at a cattle-station occupied by a superintendent of Mr. Henry O'Brian, near Jugion Creek on the right bank of the Murrumbidgee, and there passed the night. Two considerable rivers join this creek from the mountainous but fine country to the southward, one being named the Coodradigbee, the other the Doomot. The higher country there is granitic although, on both rivers, limestone also abounds in which the corals seem to belong to Mr. Murchison's Silurian system. Favosites, Stromatopora concentrica, Heliopora pyriformis, and stems of crinoidea are found loosely about the surface. There is also a large rock of haematite under Mount Jellula.
BRUNONIA ABUNDANT.
October 29.
The road led us this day over some hilly country of a rather poor description, but the beautiful flower Brunonia grew so abundantly that the surface exhibited the unusual and delicate tint of ultramarine blue. I was tempted once more to forsake the road in order to ascend a range which it crossed in hopes of being able to see, from some lofty summit thereof, points of the country I had left, and thus to connect them by means of my pocket sextant with any visible points I might recognise of my former trigonometrical survey. It was not however in my power to do this satisfactorily, not having been able to distinguish any of the latter.
YASS PLAINS.
Towards evening I drew near Yass Plains and was not a little struck with their insignificance as compared with those of the south. A township had been marked out here, and the comfortable establishments of various wealthy colonists evinced, by their preference of these plains, that they considered them the best part of a very extensive district.
THE GAP, AN INN.
Mr. Cornelius O'Brien had invited me to his house and afterwards furnished me with a supply of provisions for my party; but I carried my own despatches, and a much shorter route led to the left by which I could divide the way better in continuing my ride to the Gap, a small inn where I arrived at a very late hour, the road having been soft, uneven, and wholly through a dreary wood.
The noise and bustle of the house was quite refreshing to one who had dwelt so long in deserts, although it seemed to promise little accommodation, for there had been races in the neighbourhood and horses lay about the yard. Nevertheless the waiter and his wife cleared for my accommodation a room which had been full of noisy people, and my horses were soon lodged snugly in the stable. There indeed I perceived more room than the house afforded, for while the guests were regaling within their horses were allowed to lay about to starve outside, as if so many gypsies had been about the place; no uncommon circumstance in Australia.