rty under Major
Mitchell experience, when, after tracing for forty-nine days the dry bed
of the Lachlan, they suddenly saw a magnificent stream of clear and
running water before them, and came upon the Murrumbidgee. Its banks,
unlike those of the former channel, were clothed with excellent grass;
a pleasing sight for the cattle--and it was no slight satisfaction to
their possessors to see the jaded animals, after thirsting so long among
the muddy holes of the Lachlan, drinking at this full and flowing
stream. And yet, so different are the series of seasons, at intervals,
that, down the very river of which Mitchell speaks in 1836 as a deep,
dry ravine, containing only a scanty chain of small ponds, the boats of
its first explorer, Mr. Oxley, had, in 1817, floated during a space of
fifteen days, until they had reached a country almost entirely flooded,
and the river seemed completely to lose itself among the shallow waters!
During the winter of 1835, the whale-boats were drawn by the exploring
party 1,600 miles over land,[21] without finding a river, where they
could be used; whereas, in 1817 and 1818, Mr. Oxley had twice retired
by nearly the same routes, and in the same season of the year, from
supposed inland seas![22] So that, in fact, we rise from the perusal
of two accounts of travellers of credit, both exploring the very same
country, with the impression, from one statement, that there exists an
endless succession of swamps, or an immense shallow, inland lake; where,
from the other, we are taught to believe, there is nothing but a sandy
desert to be found, or dry and cracked plains of clay, baked hard by the
heat of the sun.

[18] This remarkable animal, called also the Ornithorynchus, is
peculiar to Australia, it has the body of a beast combined with the
mouth and feet of a duck, is to be seen frequently on the banks of the
Glenelg, and that unusually near the coast.

[19] Water is proverbially "unstable," but what occurred to Major
Mitchell's party on the Yarrayne, may serve for a specimen of the
peculiar uncertainty of the waters of Australia. In the evening a bridge
across that stream had been completed, and everything was prepared for
crossing it, but in the morning of the following day no bridge was to be
seen, the river having risen so much during the night, although no rain
had fallen, that the bridge was four feet under water, and at noon the
water had risen fourteen feet,--a chang