THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 221 
his hat made us pause to watch the results of seven columns 
of smoke issuing from the cutting, and brought us back 
to earth with the crash of seven explosions, 
A chat with the men elicited the fact that we would 
find a very indistinct track on the opposite side of the 
cutting, and with -a “‘so-long,’’ we set out for the Nepean 
and lunch. 
The track soon gave out, but as we were on a ridge 
with precipitous creeks on either side, it mattered not, and 
half an hour’s walk through typical sandstone flora, serib- 
bly gum, FE. haemastoma, with its fine-leaved variety, Ros- 
sui, an occasional eugeniodes and punctata, until at last. 
through a cluinp of Casuarina suberosa, we catch sight 
of a silver streak some 1,200 to 1,500 feet below us. Search- 
ing round for a place to descend, we pick up some cattle 
tracks, and so down and round and round and down we 
at last reach water, at the only spot, as far as we could 
see, where it could be reached without the aid of a rope 
ladder. 
What a picture was open to our gaze! We had eyi- 
dently struck about the centre of a V-shaped valley. The 
murmuring of a waterfall to the south was distinctly 
audible, and we should have probably have struck this 
had it not been for our ganger friend. Oppose: a steep 
creek had cut into the cliffs and formed a spit of a few 
acres, Which was covered with Acacia floribunda in full 
bloom—a truly golden dream. The view up and down 
the river was very fine, and some fine Hucalypts on’ the 
opposite side, at the foot of the cliffs, had the appearance 
of ‘‘terete-cornis.’? We wished that we had sufficient food 
to have made a camp amongst the Acacias for a few days 
and explored the country. 
Owing to the dryness of the season, very few plants 
had made growth, and beyond Senecio vagus, Craspedea 
Richei, Indigofera Australis, few flowers were noticed. 
Dodonea multijuga was very plentiful, as also Humea ele- 
gans, which I noticed the cattle had been cropping, al- 
though there was plenty of good grass on the river’s bank. 
Half an hour is not sufficient to do any serious work in, 
and so, after a smoke, it was time to retrace our steps. 
Zig-zageging back, we made good use of the Caswarinas and 
E. punctata to help us up the Brae. A flock of King 
