68 
RUNNING STREAM. 
and dreadfully cold. We set off early and com- 
menced tracing up and examining as many of the 
watercourses as we could ; we did not, however, find 
permanent water. 
Under one low ridge we met with what I took to 
be a small spring emanating from a limestone rock ; 
but it was so small as to be quite useless to a party 
like mine, though the natives appeared frequently 
to have resorted to it. Finding the courses of the 
main channel become lost in its many branches, I 
ascended the dividing ridge, and crossed into the 
bed of another large watercourse, in which, after 
travelling but a short distance, I found a fine 
spring of running water among some very broken 
and precipitous ranges, which rose almost perpendi- 
cularly from the channel ; in the latter, high ledges 
of a slaty rock stretched occasionally quite across its 
bed, making it both difficult and dangerous to get 
our horses along. In the vicinity of the water the 
grass was tolerably good, but the declivities upon 
which it principally grew, were steep and very 
stony. 
Having hobbled the horses, I took my gun, and 
walked down the watercourse, to a place where it 
forms a junction with a larger one, but in neither 
could I find any more water. Upon my return, 
I found that the native boy had caught an opossum 
in one of the trees near, which proved a valuable addi- 
tion to our scanty and unvaried fare. The latitude 
to-day was 30° 51' $. 
