se
words given in Captain Cook's vocabulary having ever been heard
amongst the natives who visited the settlement.

Having taken leave of their new friends the
-Car-ra-dy-gans_ (doctors), our party set off at a quarter
past seven o'clock in the morning of the 15th of April, and
followed the natives path along the banks of the river, walking
at a good pace till a quarter past eight o'clock, when they came
to a creek which was too wide to be crossed by cutting down a
tree, and was too deep to be forded; they were, therefore,
obliged to follow its windings till they supposed themselves at
the head of it, and then they endeavoured to regain the banks of
the river; but they presently found that they had only rounded a
small arm of this creek, the principal branch of which they
continued to trace with infinite fatigue for the remainder of the
day.

It was high water in this creek at forty minutes past twelve
o'clock, and at half past three, they found it divide into two
branches, either of which might have been crossed on a tree; but
by this time the party were tired, and threatened with heavy
rain, which would make their night very uncomfortable, as they
had no tent; they therefore took up their residence at a spot
where a quantity of timber, from trees, which had already been
burnt down by the natives, promised them good fires with little
labour.

The rain went off after a few light showers, but our two
natives now began to grow quite impatient to return home. Colebe
talked about his wife, and said his child would cry; and
Ballederry lost all patience when the rain began, telling the
governor, that there were good houses at Sydney and Rose-Hill,
but that they had no house now, no fish, no melon (of which fruit
all the natives are very fond); and there is no doubt but they
would have left the party, had they been acquainted with the
country through which they had to return. It was most likely that
the greatest part of the next day would be spent in getting to
that part of the river which the creek had obliged them to quit,
so that two days would be taken up in getting to the opposite
side of a creek, not one hundred feet wide; it was, therefore,
determined to return to Rose-Hill, which bore from the sleeping
place south-east, sixteen miles distant.

The river which Governor Phillip had named the Nepean in a
former excursion, was then traced for some miles, and he expected
to have fallen in with it this journey, and