ce slowly and with caution. Our provisions, however, being
calculated to last only to a certain period, I was equally reluctant to
delay our operations. My course was, therefore, to be regulated by the
appearance of the country and of the river, which I purposed examining
with the earliest dawn. If the latter should be found to run into a
region of reeds, a boat would be necessary to enable me to ascertain
its direction; but, if ultimately it should be discovered to exhaust
itself, we should have to strike into the interior on a N.W. course, in
search of the Darling. I could not think of putting the whale-boat
together in our then state of uncertainty, and it struck me that a
smaller one could sooner he prepared for the purposes for which I
should require it. These considerations, together with the view I had
taken of the measures I might at last be forced into, determined me, on
rising, to order Clayton to fell a suitable tree, and to prepare a
saw-pit. The labour was of no consideration, and even if eventually the
boat should not be wanted, no injury would arise, and it was better to
take time by the forelock. Having marked a tree preparatory to leaving
the camp, M'Leay and I started at an early hour on an excursion of
deeper interest than any we had as yet undertaken; to examine the
reeds, not only for the purpose of ascertaining their extent, if
possible, but also to guide us in our future measures. We rode for some
miles along the river side, but observed in it no signs, either of
increase or of exhaustion. Its waters, though turbid, were deep, and
its current still rapid. Its banks, too, were lofty, and showed no
evidence of decreasing in height, so as to occasion an overflow of
them, as had been the case with the Macquarie. We got among vast bodies
of reeds, but the plains of the interior were visible beyond them. We
were evidently in a hollow, and the decline of country was plainly to
the southward of west. Every thing tended to strengthen my conviction
that we were still far from the termination of the river. The character
it had borne throughout, and its appearance now so far to the westward,
gave me the most lively hopes that it would make good its way through
the vast level into which it fell, and that its termination would
accord with its promise. Besides, I daily anticipated its junction with
some stream of equal, if not of greater magnitude from the S.E. I was
aware that my resolves must be instant, decisiv