indesay,
then Acting-Governor, gave the Surveyor-General instructions to
investigate the truth of it. It was in this way that Mitchell's first
expedition originated.

On the 21st of November, 1831, Mitchell left Liverpool Plains and reached
the Namoi on the 16th December. He crossed it and penetrated some
distance into a range which he named the Nundawar Range. He then turned
back to the Namoi, and set up some canvas boats which he had brought to
assist him in following the river down. The boats were of no use for the
purpose, one of them getting snagged immediately, and it was clear that
it would be easier to follow the river on land. As the range was not easy
of ascent, he worked his way round the end of it and came on to the lower
course of Cunningham's Gwydir, which he followed down for eighty miles.
At this point he turned north and suddenly came to the largest river he
had yet seen. Mitchell, ever on the alert to bestow native names on
geographical features -- a most praiseworthy trait in his character, and
through the absence of which in most other explorers, Australian
nomenclature lacks distinction and often euphony -- enquired of the name
from the natives, and found it to be called the Karaula. Was this, or was
this not the nebulous Kindur? The answer could be supplied only by
tracing its course; but its general direction and the discovery and
recognition of its junction with the Gwydir showed that the Karaula was
but the upper flow of Sturt's Darling. Much disappointed, for Mitchell
was intent upon the discovery of a new river system having a northerly
outflow, he prepared to make a bold push into the interior. Before he
started, Finch, his assistant-surveyor arrived hurriedly on the scene
with a tale of death. Finch had been bringing up supplies, and during his
temporary absence his camp had been attacked by the natives, the cattle
dispersed, the supplies carried off, and two of the teamsters murdered.
All ideas of further penetration into the new country had to be
abandoned. Mitchell was compelled to hasten back, bury the bodies of the
victims, and after an ineffective quest for the murderers, return to the
settled districts.

The journey, however, had not been without good results. Knowledge of the
Darling had been considerably extended, and it was now shown to be the
stream receiving the outflow of the rivers whose higher courses
Cunningham had discovered. The beginning of the great river system of the