DISTANT RANGES SEEN. 
123 
M‘Leay had got safely down the rapid, so that as soon 
as I joined him, we proceeded on our journey. We fell in 
with the tribe we had already seen, but increased in num- 
bers, and we had hardly left them, when we found another 
tribe most anxiously awaiting our arrival. We staid with 
the last for some time, and exhausted our vocabulary, and 
exerted our ingenuity to gain some information from them. 
I directed Hopkinson to pile up some clay, to enquire if we 
were near any hills, when two or three of the blacks caught 
the meaning, and pointed to the N. W. Mulholland 
climbed up a tree in consequence of this, and reported to 
me that he saw lofty ranges in the direction to which the 
blacks pointed ; that there were two apparently, the one 
stretching to the N.E., the other to the N.W. He stated 
their distance to be about forty miles, and added that he 
thought he could observe other ranges, through the gap, 
which, according to the alignment of two sticks, that I 
placed according to Mulholland’s directions, bore S. 130 W. 
We had landed upon the right bank of the river, and 
there was a large lagoon immediately behind us. The 
current in the river did not run so strong as it had been. 
Its banks were much lower, and were generally covered 
with reeds. The spaces subject to flood were broader than 
heretofore, and the country for more than twenty miles was 
extremely depressed. Our view from the highest ground near 
the camp was very confined, since we were apparently in a 
hollow, and were unable to obtain a second sight of the 
ranges we had noticed. 
