es, nardoo, thatch, and water-grass,
dried and parched by the hot winds, were matted together with mud and
rubbish. At the camp the stream was 150 yards wide, the running
water being 30 yards across. The banks were of clay and sandstone,
from 20 to 30 feet high, the water was discolored to a kind of
yellowish white. During the floods the stream must be eight or ten
miles wide, for, two miles back from it, a fish weir was seen in a
small gully.

Altogether it would have been a frightful place for the party to have
been detained at. (Camp XLV.) Latitude 15 degrees 26 minutes 5
seconds.

'December' 20.--The river was still followed down to-day, the party
keeping about four miles from it, to avoid its scrubs and
ana-branches. At between 7 or 8 miles, a stream about 100 yards
wide, coming from the eastward, caused them to halt until a road was
cut through the thick vine scrub that fringed its banks. Four miles
further on they camped at a small lagoon close to the bank of the
river, at which point it is about 100 yards wide, deep, and too salt
for drinking, being affected by the tide. The country travelled over
was box, and tea-tree, melon-hole flats, shewing very high flood
marks. The ground had become very boggy from a heavy rain that fell
during the day. The night was very stormy, rain and wind falling and
blowing pretty equally. Two more head of cattle were dropped. The
total distance was 11 miles. Course W.N.W. (Camp XLVI.)

'December' 21.--The rain of last night continuing through the
morning, the party had to start in the down-pour. They crossed
another large shallow sandy creek at four miles, coming from the
eastward running south-east. The camp was formed on a lagoon about a
mile from the river bank. The country traversed was sandy, growing
only coarse wirey grasses and spinifex, sandstone rock cropping out
occasionally above the surface. The river was here a
quarter-of-a-mile wide, salt, and running strongly. Before the
pack-horses came up, a mob of blacks approached the camp, and getting
up in the trees, took a good survey of the white intruders, but on
one of the party going towards them they scampered off over the open
ground towards the river. The recollection of the affair at the
crossing place probably quickening their movements. Just at
sun-down, however, the sharp eyes of the black-boys detected some of
them actually trying to stalk the whites, using green boughs for
screens. So th