the day for the sake of our horses;
although the delay subjected us to another night in the bush. I made the
men sit down out of sight of the pond for a reason which I did not choose
to tell them; but it was that we might not, by our presence, deprive many
other starving creatures of a benefit which Providence had so bountifully
afforded to us.

On a large tree overlooking the pond, and which had already been deprived
by the natives of a considerable patch of bark, I chalked the letter M,
which the men cut out of the solid wood with their tomahawks. This being
the lowest permanent pond above the separation of the river into so many
arms, I thought that by such a mark of a white man the natives would be
more ready to point out the spot to any future traveller when required. I
found about the fires of the natives a number of small balls of dry fibre
resembling hemp, and I at first supposed it to be a preparation for
making nets, having seen such on the Darling.

FOOD OF THE NATIVES DISCOVERED.

Barney the native however soon set me right by taking up the root of a
large reed or bulrush which grew in a dry lagoon hard by, and by showing
me how the natives extracted from the rhizoma a quantity of gluten; and
this was what they eat, obtaining it by chewing the fibre. They take up
the root of the bulrush in lengths of about eight or ten inches, peel off
the outer rind and lay it a little before the fire; then they twist and
loosen the fibres, when a quantity of gluten, exactly resembling wheaten
flour, may be shaken out, affording at all times a ready and wholesome
food. It struck me that this gluten, which they call Balyan, must be the
staff of life to the tribes inhabiting these morasses, where tumuli and
other traces of human beings were more abundant than at any part of the
Lachlan that I had visited.

HORSES KNOCK UP.

April 25.

We continued our route upwards along the right bank of the Lachlan on a
bearing of 36 degrees East of North taken from Mr. Oxley's map: and
coming to the river at nine miles we again watered our horses, and rested
them for they were very weak. After travelling fifteen miles one of them
rode by Woods, who carried the theodolite, knocked up when we were far
from the Lachlan. With some difficulty we however got it on until we
reached the river and, finding water, we halted for the day after a ride
of twenty-one miles.

SCENERY ON THE LACHLAN.

The scenery was highly picturesque at that pa