REMARKABLE CLIFFS. 
147 
of infinite service to us, since we were enabled to judge of our 
distance from our several camps, as we gained them day by 
day with the current against us; and we should often have 
stopped short of them, weary and exhausted, had we not 
known that two or three reaches more would terminate our 
labour for the day. 
From the spot last spoken of, the river held on a due 
south course for the remainder of the day ; and at the 
same time changed its character. It lost its sandy bed 
and its current together, and became deep, still, and turbid, 
with a muddy bottom. It increased considerably in breadth, 
and stretched away before us in magnificent reaches of 
from three to six miles in length. The cliffs under which 
we passed towered above us, like maritime cliffs, and 
the water dashed against their base like the waves of 
the sea. They became brighter and brighter in colour, 
looking like dead gold in the sun’s rays ; and formed an 
unbroken wall of a mile or two in length. The natives on 
their summits shewed as small as crows ; and the cockatoos, 
the eagles, and other birds, were as specks above us ; 
the former made the valley reverberate with their harsh 
and discordant notes. The reader may form some idea of 
the height of these cliffs, when informed that the king of 
the feathered race made them his sanctuary. They were 
continuous on both sides of the river, but retired, more or 
less, from it, according to the extent of the alluvial flats. 
The river held a serpentine course down the valley through 
which it passed, striking the precipices alternately on each 
l 2 
