ave been abandoned, and even savages smile at the
want of generalship by which they have been allowed to burn the white
man's dairy station and stockyards on the banks of the Bogan. The
establishment of a police station near the junction of the Bogan with the
Darling, or the formation of an inland township about Fort Bourke, had
been sufficient to have secured the stations along the Bogan and
Macquarie, and to have protected the Bogan natives as well as our own
countrymen from frequent robbery, murder, and insult. Such are the
results where SQUATTING has been permitted to supersede settling. With
possession, deficiency of water in dry seasons had been remedied, and no
such debateable land had remained on the borders of a British colony.

The part of the Bogan where least water can be found, has always been
that between our present camp and Muda, a very large lagoon about 50
miles lower down. I found by the barometer that there is a fall of 206
feet in that distance of 50 miles; whereas the fall in the bed of the
Bogan is only 50 feet between Muda and New Year's Range, in a distance of
upwards of 100 miles. The general course of the Bogan changes at Muda
from N.W. to north, the former being nearly in the direction of the
general declination of the country, the latter rather across it, of which
the overflowings of the parallel river Macquarie into Duck Creek, and
other channels to the westward, seemed to afford sufficient proofs. Where
the declination is least, the water is most likely to remain in ponds in
the channel of the river after floods, the water of which can neither
flow with so much velocity, nor bear down any of the obstructions by
which ponds are formed. Mr. Dixon found the velocity of the Bogan at this
part, during a flood in 1833, to be four miles in an hour; which is about
double the average rate of the larger rivers of Australia.

I had an order from Mr. Kerr, the proprietor of this station of
Derribong, to his superintendant, for such fat cattle as I might require
to take with me as live stock. Finding that the sheep answered very well,
having lost none, and that they rather improved in travelling, whereas
the working oxen had been much jaded and impoverished by the long
journey, heavy loads, and warm weather; I determined to take as many
young bullocks as might suffice to relieve and assist the others, and
break them in as we proceeded.

30TH DECEMBER.--The wind changed to S.E., and brought a cool morn