lar chain of ponds. The country on both
sides of the creek was evidently subject to flood, but more extensively
to the south than to the north. From the creek, I struck away to my
left, and after penetrating through a belt of swamp-oak and minor
shrubs, got on a small plain, which I crossed N.E. and, to my
annoyance, found it covered with rhagodia and salsolae. As I had not
started with the intention of sleeping, I turned to the S.W. a little
before sunset, and reached the tents between ten and eleven. I found
Mr. Hume awaiting me. He informed me that at about nine miles from
where we had turned back with the party, he had struck upon a junction;
and that as the junction was much larger than the channel he had been
tracing, he thought it better to follow it up for a few miles. He found
that it narrowed in width, and that its banks became steep, with a fine
avenue of flooded-gum trees overhanging them. At four miles, he came
upon another junction, and at four miles more, found himself opposite
to the ground on which we had slept on the previous Saturday. From this
point he retraced the channel, but not finding any water for three
miles below the lower junction, he returned to the camp, with a view of
prosecuting a longer journey on the morrow. Mr. Hume had become
impressed with an opinion, that the junction up which we had slept was
no other than the Castlereagh itself; and that our position was on a
creek, probably Morrisset's chain of ponds, flowing into it. As the
cattle wanted a few days' rest, Mr. Hume and I determined to ride,
unattended, along our track to our camp of the 21st, and then to follow
the channel upwards, until we should arrive at the station of the
natives, or until we should have ridden to such a distance as would set
our conjectures at rest. In the morning, however, instead of running
upon our old track, we followed that of Mr. Hume to the junction,
giving up our first intention, with a view to ascertain if there
existed any water which we could, by an effort, gain, below where Mr.
Hume had been. The channel was very broad, with a considerable fall in
its bed, and, in appearance, more resembled the slope of a lawn than
the bed of a river. It had two gum-trees in the centre of its channel,
in one of which the floods had left the trunk of a large tree. We could
discover where it narrowed and its banks rose, but, as we intended to
make a closer examination before we left the neighbourhood, we
continued