her I would kill at once the disabled
also, and have his flesh dried; but it would be no use at present and he
may be able to get up after a spell and come in this length when, if the
weather prove favourable, I will have him killed and jerked. The
remainder of the bullocks (seven) arrived during the day and the
detachment of the party with what was thought of use of the dead bullock;
but I question much about its keeping as now it is raining steadily, but
we will use as much of it as we can and save the sheep. None of our
journeys appear to give the sheep the slightest inconvenience and they
are as ready to commence their journey in the morning as the man that
attends to them; in fact no party ought ever to go out exploring in the
summer months without them. During the day I rode out to the tops of some
of the stony ranges to get a view of the upward course of the creek; it
seems to go off somewhere on a bearing of 50 degrees but I fancy will
soon turn more to the north. It is quite astonishing to see the patches
of beautiful green grass on the slopes of the stone hills in the small
watercourses that fall down their sides; in fact the only thing like feed
I have seen for some time, and what little there is, is in the bed of the
creeks. The creek here has an anabranch that leaves it about half a mile
above and joins again about half a mile below; width of island half a
mile.

Thursday, February 27.

Rained heavily and steadily all night from the east-north-east; the
ground at daylight a perfect bog. From the severity of the night some of
our sheep got adrift but were recovered during the day. The creek,
nine-tenths of which was yesterday dry, is now running a strong stream
and momentarily increasing. Got all the animals across to this side
during the forenoon as the rain appeared likely to continue; and now that
it has set in will most likely inundate all the low flats and completely
put a stop to further progress up the creek until the ground hardens a
little. At such times the only place of safety hereabouts are the
sandhills or stony hills; the latter I prefer, and will shift to one in
the event of the rain continuing another night as steadily as it did last
night as there, and there only, is there any feed to be had for our
animals. They have fallen off considerably of late from the hot weather
and the scantiness of good feed. As soon as they were taken over the
creek they were taken out to one of the stone-ridges