country around new year’s range. 69 
anxiety was safe in his tent; that he had caught sight of the 
hill the evening before, and that he had reached the camp 
shortly after I left it. He had been absent three nights and 
two days, and had not tasted water or food of any kind 
during that time. 
To my enquiries he replied, that, being on horseback, he 
thought he could have overtaken a kangaroo, which passed 
him whilst waiting at the creek for the cattle, and that in the 
attempt, he lost himself. It would appear that he crossed the 
creek in the dark, and his horse escaped from him on the first 
night. He complained more of thirst than of hunger, although 
he had drunk at the watering-place to such an excess, on his 
return, as to make him vomit; but, though not a little ex- 
hausted, he had escaped better than I should have expected. 
New Year’s Range consists of a principal group of five 
hills, the loftiest of which does not measure 300 feet in 
height. It has lateral ridges, extending to the N. N. W. 
on the one hand, and bending in to the creek on the other. 
The former have a few cypresses, sterculia, and iron bark 
upon them ; the latter are generally covered with brush, under 
box ; the brush for the most part consisting of two distinct 
species of stenochylus, and a new acacia. The whole range 
is of quartz formation, small fragments of which are pro- 
fusely scattered over the ridges, and are abundantly in- 
crusted with oxide of iron. The soil in the neighbourhood 
of New Year’s Range is a red loam, with a slight mixture of 
sand. An open forest country lies between it and the 
creek, and it is not at all deficient in pasture. 
