r regions, and at sunset it began to rain. The
position of the hills and the direction of the river were here
particularly interesting, as likely soon to decide the question
respecting the ultimate course of this solitary stream on which our lives
depended in this dry and naked wilderness!

June 18.

The morning was fine as usual, the rain which fell during the night had
only laid the dust. We proceeded south-west until the bends of the river
obliged me to move still more to the southward. The hills on the opposite
bank at length receded, and we saw before us only a wide desert plain
where nothing seemed to move, and the only indication of life throughout
this melancholy waste was a distant column of dark smoke ascending in
remarkable density to the sky. In the afternoon, the wind blowing keenly
from the west-south-west, we encamped amongst some polygonum bushes near
the river after travelling 10 1/4 miles.

June 19.

A thick haze came on, with an extremely cold wind from the south-west;
and as it was necessary to look well before me in this part of our
journey, I gave the men and cattle the benefit of a day's rest. The river
was so shallow that it seemed almost possible to step across it; and no
deep reaches appeared in its bed. This probably was the reason why no
natives were in the vicinity, as in such deep parts only can they find
fish. The quantity of water continued the same as when we first came on
the river 120 miles higher up.

GRASS PULLED AND PILED IN RICKS BY THE NATIVES.

In the neighbourhood of our camp the grass had been pulled to a very
great extent, and piled in hay-ricks so that the aspect of the desert was
softened into the agreeable semblance of a hay-field. The grass had
evidently been thus laid up by the natives, but for what purpose we could
not imagine. At first I thought the heaps were only the remains of
encampments, as the aborigines sometimes sleep on a little dry grass; but
when we found the ricks, or haycocks, extending for miles we were quite
at a loss to understand why they had been made. All the grass was of one
kind, a new species of Panicum related to P. effusum R. Br.* and not a
spike of it was left in the soil over the whole of the ground. A
cucurbitaceous plant had also been pulled up and accumulated in smaller
heaps; and from some of the roots the little yam had been taken, but on
others it remained. The surface, naturally soft, thus appeared as bare as
a fallow field. I fou