great distance across some open plains, apparently near the river.
The eldest of our guides ran after them, and I requested him to assure
them that the white men would do no harm, and to tell them not to run
away. At length he overtook them. Two appeared to carry unseemly loads
across their backs, dangling under large opossum-skin cloaks, and it was
evident that these were mummied bodies. I had heard of such a custom, but
had not before seen it. I had then but a distant view of these females,
as they resumed their flight, and continued it until they reached woods
bounding the plain on the westward. The line of Yarra trees of the great
Balonne river ran parallel to our march westward, and there also,
according to my guides, was "Congo," the ford marked out by my son, and
which spot I most anxiously desired to see and identify by his initials.
Still my guides led westward towards the woods, and as we approached
them, the shout or scream of little Dicky, a native child of the Bogan,
follower of my camp, first drew my attention to a black phalanx within
the forest, of natives presenting a front like a battalion. Youranigh my
interpreter halted and remonstrated: our elder guide ran forward, and on
his reaching that body, the sound of gruff voices that arose from it
strongly reminded me of Milton's description of Satan's army:

"Their rising all at once was as the sound Of thunder heard remote."

Youranigh would not advance another step, although much pressed by the
other native remaining with us to do so, but declared that "those fellows
were murry coola," (very angry). We therefore retraced our footsteps to
the camp, without having seen either the Balongo or Congo. Our guide soon
overtook us, accompanied by fourteen of the strange natives, who, all
curiosity, passed the night at our camp, and they brought with them a lad
named "Jemmy," who spoke a little English, and had visited many of our
cattle-stations. He was very intelligible to Youranigh, who but very
imperfectly understood the language of the rest. They seemed upon the
whole a frank and inoffensive race. Their food consisted of the fish of
the river, ducks, and the small indigenous melon, CUCUMIS PUBESCENS,
which grew in such abundance, that the whole country seemed strewed with
the fruit, then ripe, and of which the natives eat great quantities, and
were very fond. It is about the size of a plum only, and in the journal
of my first interior journey (in 1831), is men