upply our necessities, but as it
enabled us to push so much further on, we turned towards the lagoon,
making a circuitous journey to the right, across a large plain, bounded to
the north by low acacia brush and box. We struck upon a creek at the
further extremity of the plain, in which there was a tolerably sized pond.
It appeared from the traces of men, that some natives had been there the
day before; but we did not see any of them. The water was extremely muddy
and unfit for use. The lagoon at which we had encamped, was of less
importance than we had imagined.

JOURNEY DOWN THE RIVER.

Whilst Mr. Hume led the party down the river, I rode up its northward
bank, to examine it more closely. I found it to be a serpentine sheet of
about three miles in length, gradually decreasing in depth until it
separated into two small creeks. In following one of them up, I observed
that they re-united at the distance of about two miles, and that the
lagoon was filled from the eastward, and not by the river as I had at
first supposed. The waters at the head of the lagoon were putrid, nor was
there a fish in, or a wild fowl upon it. The only bird we saw was a
beautiful eagle, of the osprey kind, with plumage like a sea gull, which
had a nest in the tree over the tents.

In turning to overtake the party I rode through a great deal of acacia
scrub, and on arriving at the place at which I expected to have overtaken
them, I found they had pushed on.

The Castlereagh, as I rode down it, diminished in size considerably, and
became quite choked up with rushes and brambles. Rough-gum again made its
appearance, with swamp-oak and a miserable acacia scrub outside. The
country on both sides of the river seemed to be an interminable flat, and
the soil of an inferior description.

WRETCHED APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.

I came up with with Mr. Hume about 1 o'clock and we again pushed forward
at 3, and halted for the night without water, the want of which the cattle
did not feel. The river held a general westerly course, and the country in
its neighbourhood became extremely depressed and low. On the following day
we moved forward a distance of not more than nine miles, through a country
on which, at first, the acacia pendula alone was growing on a light
alluvial soil. The river had many back drains, by means of which, in wet
seasons, it inundates the adjacent plains. It was evident, however, that
they had not been flooded for many years; and, notwi