lected me; and Tenbury, the native constable at
Moorundi, not only knew me the moment he saw me, but observed that a
little white man sat by my side in the stern of the boat, and that I had
something before me, which was a compass. There was a suspicious manner
about our visitor, for which we could not very well account; but it arose
from doubts he entertained as to the safety of his net, for after he had
seen that it had not been taken away, his demeanour changed, and he
expressed great satisfaction that we had not touched it.

We commenced our journey up the Darling at nine o'clock, on a course
somewhat to the westward {EASTWARD in published text} of north.
We passed flat after flat of the most vivid green, ornamented by clumps
of trees, sufficiently apart to give a most picturesque finish to the
landscape. Trees of denser foliage and deeper shade dropped over the
river, forming long dark avenues, and the banks of the river, grassed
to the water, had the appearance of having been made so by art.

We halted, after a journey of fourteen miles, on a flat little inferior
to that we had left, and again turned the cattle out to feed on the
luxuriant herbage around them.

The Darling must have been in the state in which we found it for a great
length of time, and I am led to infer, from the very grassy nature of its
bed, that it seldoms contains water to any depth, or length of time,
since in such case the grass would be killed. Its flats, like those of
the Murray, are backed by lagoons, but they had long been dry, and the
trees growing round them were either dead or dying.

With the exception of the tribe at the Ana-branch, and the old man, we
had seen no natives since leaving the Murray; but, from the reports we
had heard of the recent massacre of the overland party at Williorara, and
the character of the Darling blacks, I was induced to take double
precautions as I journeyed up the river, and had the camp so formed that
it could not be surprised. Two drays were ranged close to each other on
either side, the boat carriage formed a face to the rear, and the tents
occupied the front; thus leaving sufficient room in the centre to fold
the sheep in netting. The guard, augmented to six men, occupied a tent at
one angle. My own tent was in the centre of the front, and another tent
at the angle opposite the guard tent. So that it would have been
difficult for the natives to have got at the sheep (which they most
coveted), with