determined to prosecute our search at daylight next morning.

COURSE OF THE MURRUMBIDGEE.

May 14.

Having laid down our work on the map last evening (by the light of the
fire) I found that we were to the eastward, not only of our late camp
where we had wanted water, but also even of our last camp on the Lachlan,
and to the southward of it thirteen miles. It thus appeared that the
river had taken a very extraordinary turn to the south or south-east,
probably near our last encampment upon it. After measuring three miles
further this morning, by which I was enabled to intersect a low hill in
the situation where I expected to find the Kalare, and being then on a
bend of the Murrumbidgee whence I could see no other indication of it
save the line of trees some miles off, in which however it no doubt was,
the whole intervening space being covered with Polygonum junceum, I was
content with intersecting the point where that line joined the
Murrumbidgee, chiefly out of consideration for the men who were with me.
It was well that I then determined to return, for one man became so
faint, when within a few miles of the camp, that the two others had to
remain with him until I rode forward to it and sent back the doctor with
something for them to eat.

The course of the Murrumbidgee, as far as I traced it in that excursion,
appeared to be about west, and I distinctly saw, from the highest point I
attained on that river, rising ground at a great distance also bearing
east. Under these circumstances it was obvious that the long course of
the river Lachlan is in no part better defined than where it enters the
basin of the Murrumbidgee. Water, which had been so scarce in other
parts, was abundant where its channel and immediate margins assumed the
reedy character of the greater river. So far from terminating in a lagoon
or uninhabitable marsh, the banks of the Lachlan at fifty miles below the
spot where Mr. Oxley supposed he saw its termination as a river, are
backed on both sides by rising ground, until the course turns finally
southward into the Murrumbidgee.

TRIBE FROM CUDJALLAGONG VISITS THE CAMP IN MY ABSENCE.

On my arrival at the camp I found that six of the party mounted had set
out in search of me at midday. A strong tribe had arrived soon after my
departure and, in conjunction with those natives whom we found there, it
had been molesting the camp during the whole of the night. On first
coming up the men composing it bol