n's group.
Promising view to the southward.
A burnt scrub full or spinous dead boughs.
A night without water.
Return to the camp.
The party proceeds down the Darling.
Surprise a party of natives.
New acacia.
Mr. Hume's tree found.
Fall in the Darling.
Surprised by a party of natives.
Emu killed by the dogs.
Dunlop's range.
Meet the Puppy tribe.
Ascend Dunlop's range.
High land discovered to the westward.
Grass pulled and piled in ricks by the natives.
Hills beyond the Darling.
Convenient refraction.
Native huts.
Interview with the Red tribe.
The Puppy tribe.
How to avoid the sandy hills and soft plains.
Macculloch's range.
Visit a hill beyond the Darling.
View from its summit.

RAIN AT LAST.

May 27.

During the night the wind blew and rain fell for the first time since the
party left the colony. As we had been travelling for the last month on
ground which must have become impassable after two days of wet weather,
it may be imagined what satisfaction our high position gave me when I
heard the rain patter. The morning being fair I reconnoitred the course
of the river and the environs of our camp, and at once selected the spot
on which our tents then stood for a place of defence, and a station in
which the party should be left with the cattle. The boats were
immediately lowered from the carriage, and although they had been brought
500 miles across mountain ranges and through trackless forests, we found
them in as perfect a state as when they left the dockyard at Sydney.

STOCKADE ERECTED.

Our first care was to erect a strong stockade of rough logs, that we
might be secure under any circumstances; for we had not asked permission
to come there from the inhabitants, who had been reported to be numerous,
and who would of course soon make their appearance. All hands were set to
fell trees and cut branches, and in a very short time a stockade was in
progress, capable of a stout resistance against any number of natives.

NAMED FORT BOURKE.

As the position was in every respect a good one, either for its present
purpose or, hereafter perhaps, for a township, and consequently was one
important point gained by this expedition, I named it Fort Bourke after
His Excellency the present Governor, the better to mark the epoch in the
progress of interior discovery.

VISITED BY THE NATIVES.

May 28.

This morning some natives appeared on the opposite bank of the river,
shouting and calling, but keeping at a res