BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 307 
soon after quitting our old line, we entered on a grassy 
country, and stopped to dine three or four miles up the 
brook, and while thus engaged, a pair of beautiful falcons, 
the Falco hypoleucus of Gould's Australian Birds, were ob- 
served hovering over us, and Mr. Gilbert succeeded in 
Shooting one of them. Proceeding in the same direction for 
about ten miles, we crossed, at a place called Mugadrine by 
the natives, the tracks of my sons and of Captain Scully. 
They had gone about ten miles up the main branch of the 
river, but had seen little grass on its banks; in proceeding, 
however from thence to our station on the Moore River, they 
had passed over an extensive portion of grassy land. After 
quitting their traces, we pursued the same course for six or 
eight miles, which led us toa charming grass-clothed country, 
where we met with a large tribe of Aborigines, many of whom 
had never seen a white man, but were very friendly. They 
made so much noise in testifying their surprize at beholding 
such a strangely-coloured variety of their own species as 
ourselves, that we tried to remove to some distance, in hopes 
of obtaining a quiet night; but all in vain, they chose to 
follow us. Many of the single men slept by our fire, the 
married ones retiring a little. Our guide, — recog- 
nized among this , a young girl ten or twelve years 
old, whom her ee cie destined, from her birth, to be- 
come one of his wives, and he introduced her to us witha 
vast deal of ceremony. The poor child was very bashful, but 
after much persuasion, was induced to come to our fire, 
where she took care to keep Cabbinger between herself and 
the white men. We gave her some tea, well sweetened with 
Plenty of sugar, and her future husband assured her that 
this should be her constant beverage when she was old 
€nough to leave her mother and come to live with him and 
the white people. 
_On the 30th, at daylight, we proceeded to the top of a 
hill near our sleeping-place, called Margion by the natives, 
whence, far as the eye could reach, a splendid grassy country 
