152 
DELIGHTFUL COUNTRY. 
region, and the flats bordering it appear, by successive 
depositions, to have only just gained a height above the 
further influence of the floods. Should this prove to be the 
case, the valley may be decidedly laid down as a most desir- 
able spot, whether we regard the richness of its soil, its rock 
formation, its locality, or the extreme facility of water com- 
munication along it. It must not, however, be forgotten or 
concealed, that the summits of the cliffs by which the valley 
is enclosed, have not a corresponding soil. On the con- 
trary, many of the productions common to the plains of 
the interior still existed upon them, and they were decidedly 
barren ; but as we measured the reaches of the river, the cliffs 
ceased, and gave place to undulating hills, that were very dif- 
ferent in appearance from the country we bad previously 
noted down. It would have been impossible for the most 
tasteful individual to have laid out pleasure ground to more 
advantage, than Nature had done in planting and disposing 
the various groups of trees along the spine, and upon the 
sides of the elevations that confined the river, and bounded 
the low ground that intervened between it and their base. 
Still, however, the soil upon these elevations was sandy, 
and coarse, but the large oat-grass was abundant upon them, 
which yielded pasture at least as good as that in the broken 
country between Underaliga and Morumbidgee. 
We had now gained a distance of at least sixty miles 
from that angle of the Murray at which it reaches its ex- 
treme west. The general aspect of the country to our right 
was beautiful, and several valleys branched away into the 
