irections that the drays should at once halt, taking their places beside
the leading dray, and that the cattle should be driven back in the
morning to be watered at the last camp (Warranb), and then to return and
follow in my track. Mr. Drysdale, the storekeeper, had also to go back to
serve out a week's rations to the party with the drays, and he returned
to my camp by 2 A. M., in the moonlight, bringing, on the horse of the
former messenger, rations for my party. Here we found the KERAUDRENIA
INTEGRIFOLIA. Thermometer at sunrise, 70 deg.; at noon, 105 deg.; at 9, 83 deg.;--
with wet bulb, 57 deg..

22D FEBRUARY.--My guide was now desirous that I should cross the
Macquarie, to open plains which he represented to be much more favourable
for wheel carriages; but I endeavoured to explain to him, by drawing
lines in the clay surface, how the various rivers beyond would cross and
impede my journey to the Barwan. There were the Castlereagh, Morissett's
Ponds, and the Nammoy.[* If Arrowsmith's map had been correct, which it
was not, for the Nammoy joins the Darling separately, at least fifty
miles higher than the junction of the Castlereagh.]

An instance occurred here of the uselessness of new names, and the
necessity for preserving the native names of Rivers. I could refer, in
communicating with our guide, to the Nammoy only, and to the hills which
partly supplied the Castlereagh, whereof the native name was
Wallambangle. I wanted to make them understand the probability that some
flood had come down the channel of the Castlereagh, and that we might
therefore hope to find water below its junction with the Macquarie. This,
with the aid of Yuranigh, our own native, was at length made intelligible
to our Barwan guide, and he shaped his course accordingly. He took us
through scrubs, having in the centre those holes where water usually
lodges for some time after rain, where some substratum of clay happens to
be retentive enough to impede the common absorption. But the water in
these holes had been recently drunk, and the mud trampled into hard clay
by the hoofs of cattle. Thus it is, that the aborigines first become
sensible of the approach of the white man. These retired spots, where
nature was wont to supply enough for their own little wants, are well
known to the denizens of the bush. Each locality has a name, and such
places are frequented by helpless females with their children, or by the
most peaceably disposed natives with