4G 
NATIVES THEIR UGLINESS. 
tract was, however, well adapted either for agriculture, or 
for grazing, and, in spite of the drought that had evidently 
long hung over it, was well covered with vegetation. We 
had passed all high lands, and the interior to the westward 
presented an unbroken level to the eye. The Morumbidgee 
appeared to hold a more northerly course than I had anti- 
cipated. Still low ranges continued upon our right, and 
the cypress ridges became more frequent and denser ; but 
the timber on the more open grounds generally consisted 
of box and flooded-gum. Of minor trees, the acacia pendula 
was the most prevalent, with a shrub bearing a round nut, 
enclosed in a scarlet capsule, and an interesting species of 
stenochylus. I had observed as yet, few of the plants of 
the more northern interior. 
In this neighbourhood, the dogs killed an emu and a 
kangaroo, which came in very conveniently for some natives 
whom we fell in with on one of the river flats. They were, 
without exception, the worst featured of any I had ever seen. 
It is scarcely possible to conceive that human beings could 
be so hideous and loathsome. The old black, who was 
rather good-looking, told me they were the last we should 
see for some time, and I felt that if these were samples of 
the natives on the lowlands, I cared very little how few of 
them we should meet. 
The country on the opposite side of the river had all the 
features of that to the north of it, but a plain of such extent 
suddenly opened upon us to the southward, that I halted at 
once in order to examine it, and by availing myself of a 
