means
were too much exhausted to allow of their commencing an examination, of
the result of which there could be but little doubt. The expedition
returned to Sydney, without any splendid discovery to gild its
proceedings; and the labours and dangers it had encountered were
considered as nothing more than ordinary occurrences. If I myself had
entertained hopes that my researches would have benefited the colony, I
was wholly disappointed. There is a barren tract of country lying to
the westward of the Blue Mountains that will ever divide the eastern
coast from the more central parts of Australia, as completely as if
seas actually rolled between them.

GEOGRAPHICAL REMARKS.

In a geographical point of view, however, nothing could have been more
satisfactory, excepting an absolute knowledge of the country to the
northward between the Murray and the Darling, than the results of the
expedition. I have in its proper place stated, as fairly as I could, my
reasons for supposing the principal junction (which I consequently left
without a name) to be the Darling of my former journey, as well as the
various arguments that bore against such a conclusion.

Of course, where there is so much room for doubt, opinions will be
various. I shall merely review the subject, in order to connect
subsequent events with my previous observations, and to give the reader
a full idea of that which struck me to be the case on a close and
anxious investigation of the country from mountain to lowland. I
returned from the Macquarie with doubts on my mind as to the ultimate
direction to which the waters of the Darling river might ultimately
flow; for, with regard to every other point, the question was, I
considered, wholly decided. But, with regard to that singular stream, I
was, from the little knowledge I had obtained, puzzled as to its actual
course; and I thought it as likely that it might turn into the heart of
the interior, as that it would make to the south. It had not, however,
escaped my notice, that the northern rivers turned more abruptly
southward (after gaining a certain distance from the base of the
ranges) than the more southern streams: near the junction of the
Castlereagh with the Darling especially, the number of large creeks
joining the first river from the north, led me to conclude that there
was at that particular spot a rapid fall of country to the south.

The first thing that strengthened in my mind this half-formed opinion,
wa