any covetousness, although surrounded by articles, the smallest of which
might have been of use to them. There must be an original vein of mind in
these aboriginal men of the land. O that philosophy or philanthropy could
but find it out and work it! Yuranigh plied them with all my questions,
but to little purpose; for although he could understand their language,
he complained that they did not answer him in it, but repeated, like
parrots, whatever he said to them. In the same manner, they followed me
with a very exact repetition of English words. He, however, gathered from
them that the lake was called "Turanimga," this river "Cogoon," a hill to
the eastward "Toolumba," etc. They had never before seen white men, and
behaved as properly as it was possible for men in their situation to do.
At length we set out on our journey, and in mounting my horse, which
seemed very much to astonish them, I made signs that we were going to the
mountains.

Travelling by the river bank was easy, over grassy forest land. The deep
ponds were tolerably well filled, but the quantity of water was small, in
comparison with that in the Balonne; which the natives seemed to say we
had left to the right, and that this was "one of its brothers." Malga
scrub crowned the bergs of the river, where they bounded one of these
forest flats forming its margin, and the mere sight of that impervious
sort of scrub was sufficient to banish all thoughts of making straighter
cuts to the north-west. Our course, with the river, was, however, now
rather to the west of north-west; and that this was but a tributary to
the Balonne, was evident. That river line, as traced by us, pursued a
tolerably straight direction between the parallels of 29 deg. and 27 deg., coming
round from nearly north-east to about north. For these last three days we
had travelled with this minor channel, to the westward of north-west; in
which direction I had, therefore, good reason to expect that we should
soon find mountains.

As soon as we arrived at an eligible spot for the camp, I proceeded, with
Yuranigh, towards a height presenting a rocky face, which I saw through
the trees, and seemed distant about two miles. From that crest, I
perceived woody ridges on all sides, but all apparently sloping from the
south-west; and a misty valley beyond the nearest of them in the
northeast, like the line of the Balonne. But the most interesting sight
to me then, was that of blue pics at a great dist