of the
rivers on that memorable occasion. He therefore decided that to keep on
was but needlessly endangering the lives of his men. He was constantly
kept in a state of anxiety for the safety of any member of the party
whose duty compelled him to separate from the main body, for the natives,
who had become doubly bold through familiarity, were now persistently
encroaching and rapidly assuming a defiant manner.

On the very day that Mitchell had made up his mind to retreat, the long
threatened rupture took place. Mitchell refers to the blacks of this
region as the most unfavourable specimens of aborigine that he had yet
seen, barbarously and implacably hostile, and shamelessly dishonest. On
the morning of July 11th, two of the men were engaged at the river, and
five of the bullock-drivers were collecting their cattle. One of the
natives, nick-named King Peter by the men, tried to snatch a kettle from
the hand of the man who was carrying it, and on this action being
resented, he struck the man with a nulla-nulla, stretching him senseless.
His companion shot King Peter in the groin, and his majesty tumbled into
the river and swam across. The swarm of natives who were constantly
loitering around the camp gathered together and advanced in an armed
crowd, threatening the men, who fired two shots in self-defence, one of
which accidentally wounded a woman. Alarmed by the shots, three men from
the camp came to the assistance of their mates, and one native was shot
just when he was about to spear a man. The blacks now drew back a little,
and the men seized the opportunity to warn the bullock-drivers, whom they
found occupied in lifting a bullock that had fallen into a bog. Their
arrival probably saved their lives, as the bullock drivers were unarmed.
No further attack took place, but the strictest watch had to be kept
until the party was ready to begin the return journey or to beat a
retreat as the natives regarded it. They reached Fort Bourke without
further molestation, the aborigines being content with having driven away
the whites, who retraced their steps from Fort Bourke to Bathurst.

The geographical knowledge gained on this journey consisted mainly in the
confirmation of tentative theories -- the identity of the Karaula with
the Darling, and the uninterrupted course of the latter river southwards,
as Major Mitchell himself had to confess, into the Murray. Furthermore it
seemed now satisfactorily settled that all the inla