ween numberless
trunks of trees, an operation that exhausted the men much more than
rowing. The river had fallen below its former level, and rocks and logs
were now exposed above the water, over many of which the boat's keel
must have grazed, as we passed down with the current. I really
shuddered frequently, at seeing these complicated dangers, and I was at
a loss to conceive how we could have escaped them. The planks of our
boat were so thin that if she had struck forcibly against any one
branch of the hundreds she must have grazed, she would inevitably have
been rent asunder from stem to stern.

COMPLETE EXHAUSTION OF THE MEN--ONE LOSES HIS SENSES.

The day after we passed the depot, on our return, we began to
experience the effects of the rains that had fallen in the mountains.
The Morumbidgee rose upon us six feet in one night, and poured along
its turbid waters with proportionate violence. For seventeen days we
pulled against them with determined perseverance, but human efforts,
under privations such as ours, tend to weaken themselves, and thus it
was that the men began to exhibit the effects of severe and unremitting
toil. Our daily journeys were short, and the head we made against the
stream but trifling. The men lost the proper and muscular jerk with
which they once made the waters foam and the oars bend. Their whole
bodies swung with an awkward and laboured motion. Their arms appeared
to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated,
their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from
mere exhaustion they frequently fell asleep during their painful and
almost ceaseless exertions. It grieved me to the heart to see them in
such a state at the close of so perilous a service, and I began to
reproach Robert Harris that he did not move down the river to meet us;
but, in fact, he was not to blame. I became captious, and found fault
where there was no occasion, and lost the equilibrium of my temper in
contemplating the condition of my companions. No murmur, however,
escaped them, nor did a complaint reach me, that was intended to
indicate that they had done all they could do. I frequently heard them
in their tent, when they thought I had dropped asleep, complaining of
severe pains and of great exhaustion. "I must tell the captain,
to-morrow," some of them would say, "that I can pull no more."
To-morrow came, and they pulled on, as if reluctant to yield to
circumstances. Macname