also that they
might afterwards see our horses' tracks there, lest our green bough and
subsequent return might have encouraged them to follow us. Yuranigh was
burning the mutton bones we had picked; but I directed him to throw them
about, that the natives might see that we neither eat their kangaroos nor
emus. I found the course of the river very straight, but rather more than
it had been, to the eastward of north. In some parts of the channel, lay
deep reaches of water, fully a mile long; at other places, shallow
hollows quite dry, seemed to be the only channel for the river's
currents. We avoided brigalow scrubs, and passed the night on a grassy
part of the bank, about ten miles back from the farthest point we had
reached that morning.

10TH AUGUST.--Early in the morning a moist breeze blew from the north,
with low scud not very high above the trees. Higher clouds drove as
rapidly from the westward. The extremely moist air was a great novelty to
us there. About 9 A.M., the sky was wholly overcast; but it finally
cleared up, and the day was cool. We reached the camp about 3 P.M.,
having hit the river on which it was situated, two miles lower. There I
found, to my surprise, that its channel was very deep and full of water,
being broader than that of the main river. I was, therefore, inclined to
explore its sources by proceeding upwards next day, as the direction of
the northerly stream, did not promise much. The camp had just been
visited by seventeen natives, apparently bent on hostile purposes, all
very strong, several of them upwards of six feet high. Each of them
carried three or four missile clubs. They were headed by an old man, and
a gigantic sort of bully, who would not keep his hands off our carts.
They said, by signs, that the whole country belonged to the old man. They
pointed in the direction in which I had gone, and to where Mr. Stephenson
happened to be at the time, down in the river bed; and then beckoned to
the party that they also should follow or go where I had gone, or leave
that place. They were received very firmly, but civilly and patiently, by
the men, and were requested to sit down at a distance, my man Brown,
being very desirous that I should return before they departed; thinking
the old man might have given me some information about the river, which
he called "Belyando." But a noisy altercation seemed to arise between the
old chief and the tallest man, about the clubs, during which the latter
a