es of the
spot on which we stood; that he belonged to the cattle station of Mr.
Parnell, Jun., which was distant from my last camp about five miles, and
on the main river; also that the track I was following led to Mohanna,
Mr. Lawson's station, seventy-five miles lower down the Barwan. I turned
with him towards the junction of the Macquarie and Barwan, and encamped
thereby, right glad to reach at length, the river beyond which our
exploratory tour was to commence. The river looked well, with a good
current of muddy water in it, of considerable width, and really like a
river. I understood from my guide to this point, that there was a good
ford across the river at his station; also that Commissioner Mitchell had
been down the river a short time back, making a map to show all the
cattle stations on both banks. We had neither seen nor heard anything of
Mr. Wright, the commissioner of the Macquarie district through which we
had just passed, except that he "might visit the district when the hot
weather was over." Here we found a new species of CALOTIS.[*] Thermometer
at sunrise, 61 deg.; at noon, 101 deg.; at 4 P.M., 100 deg.; at 9, with wet bulb,
62 deg..

[* Calotis SCAPIGERA (Hook. MSS.); stolonifera glaberrima, foliis omnibus
radicalibus lineari-spathulatis, scapo nudo monocephalo, achenii aristis
robustis subulatis retrorsum pilosis apice rectis vel uncinatis.--A very
distinct species. Habit of BRACHYSTEPHIUM SCAPIGERUM D. C.: but that
ought to have no aristae to the achenium: here the awns are very stout in
proportion to the size of the capitulum.]

1ST MARCH.--When, fifteen years before, I visited this river at a higher
point where it was called the Karaula [*], no trace of hoofs of horses or
bullocks had been previously imprinted on the clayey banks. Now, we found
it to be the last resource of numerous herds in a dry and very hot
season, and so thickly studded were the banks of this river with cattle
stations, that we felt comparatively at home. The ordinary precautionary
arrangements of my camp against surprise by savage natives seemed quite
unnecessary, and, to stockmen, almost ridiculous. We had at length
arrived at the lowest drain of that vast basin of clay absorbing many
rivers, so that they lose themselves as in the ocean. Here the final
outlet or channel of the waters of the Macquarie, was but a muddy ditch
one might step across, which the magnificent flood we had seen in the
same river above the marshes was