not at all likely to reach. That flood
had gone to fill thousands of lagoons, without which supply, those vast
regions had been unfit for animal existence. Here we discover another
instance of that wonderful wisdom which becomes more and more apparent to
man, when he either looks as far as he can into space, or attentively
examines the arrangement of any matter more accessible to him. The very
slight inclination of the surface of these extensive plains seems finely
adapted to the extremely dry and warm climate over this part of the
earth. If the interior slope of the land from the eastern coastranges
were as great as that in other countries supplying rivers of sustained
current, it is obvious that no water would remain in such inclined
channels here; but the slope is so gentle that the waters spread into a
net-work of reservoirs, that serve to irrigate vast plains, and fill
lagoons with those floods that, when confined in any one continuous
channel, would at once run off into the ocean.

[* We then understood the natives very imperfectly and might have been
wrong about the name, which is the more likely, as CARAWY, which the name
resembles, means any deep water-hole.]

In a wet season, the country through which we had traced out a route with
our wheels had been impassable. The direction I should have preferred,
and in which I had endeavoured to proceed, was along the known limits of
this basin, and formed a curved line, or an arc, to which the route
necessity had obliged us to follow was the chord; thus we had not lost
time; but had, in fact, shortened the distance to be travelled over very
considerably. A permanent route had, however, seemed to me more desirable
to any country we might discover, than one liable to be interrupted by
flooded rivers and soft impassable ground. The track of our drays, along
the western side of the Macquarie marshes opened a new and direct route
from Sydney to the banks of the river Darling, by way of Bathurst; and
afforded access to a vast extent of excellent pasturage on the Macquarie,
along the western margin of the marshes, which land would, no doubt, be
soon taken up by squatters. In so dry a climate, and where water is so
frequently scarce, it may, indeed, be found that the shortest line of
route with such advantages would be more frequented than any longer line,
possessing only the remote advantage of security from interruption by too
much water. Thermometer at sunrise, 64 deg.; at