e stood the only guardian of all we possessed. Her presence of mind in
assuming such a charge on such an occasion was very commendable, and
seemed characteristic of the female aborigines.

I gave to the little hill which witnessed this overthrow of our enemies
and was to us the harbinger of peace and tranquillity the name of Mount
Dispersion.

CROSS A TRACT INTERSECTED BY DEEP LAGOONS.

The day's journey was still before us. On leaving the river we soon
encountered a small creek or ana-branch* and, though I made a practice of
avoiding all such obstructions by going round rather than crossing them,
yet in the present case I was compelled to deviate from my rule on
finding that this creek would take me too far northward. Soon after, we
approached a lagoon and during the whole day, turn wherever we would, we
were met by similar bodies of water or, as I considered them, pools left
in the turnings and windings of some ana-branch formed during high floods
of the river. Nevertheless I managed to preserve a course in the desired
direction; and at length we encamped on the bank of several deep ponds
which lay in the channel of a broad watercourse. I was anxious to avoid
if possible being shut up between ana-branches and the river lest, as the
river seemed rising, I might be at length surrounded by deep water. I was
in some uncertainty here about the actual situation of the Murray and our
position was anything but good; for it was in the midst of scrubby
ground, and did not command, in any way, the place where alone grass
enough was to be found for the cattle. The bergs of the river were not to
be seen, although the river itself could not be distant; for the whole
country traversed this day was of that description which belongs to the
margin of streams, being grassy land under an open forest containing
goborro and yarra trees. These are seldom found in that region at any
considerable distance from the banks of the river, the whole interior
country being covered with Eucalyptus dumosa and patches of the pine or
Callitris pyramidalis.

(*Footnote. See above.)

May 28.

A thick fog hung over us in the morning but it did not impede our
progress. For the first three miles our way was along the banks of the
channel or lagoon beside which we had passed the night. It then crossed a
polygonum flat and several dry hollows, beyond which I at length saw the
rising ground of the river-berg and, immediately after, the river itself,
flow