een digging in the mud for worms, others searching
for freshwater muscles; and if the whole could have been witnessed
unperceived, such a scene of domestic life amongst the aborigines had
been worth a little more risk. The strong men assumed a strange attitude,
which seemed very expressive of surprise; having the right knee bent, the
left leg forward, the right arm dropping, but grasping clubs; the left
arm raised, and the fingers spread out. "Aya, aya, minya!" they
continually shouted; and well might they ask what we wanted! Hoping they
would believe us to be Centaurs, and include the two old pack-horses in
counting our numbers, I had not the slightest desire to let them know us
more particularly; and so travelled on, glad, at length, to hear their
"Aya minyas" grow fainter, and that we were leaving them behind. About
five miles further south, the perfume from the liliaceous banks of the
river was the first indication of its vicinity. We found it full 400
yards broad, presenting its usual characteristics,--several separate
channels and ponds of water; there, according to the barometer, the
height above the sea was only 633 feet; the temperature at 3 P. M., in
the shade, 99 deg. of Fahrenheit. We watered our horses, crossed, and plunged
into the brigalow beyond, where I meant to steal a march upon the noisy
tribe; who, by that time, probably were sending to call in their hunting
parties, that they might follow our track. Their mode of killing a
kangaroo may best exemplify their tactics towards strangers; whose path
in the same manner could be followed by day, and sat down beside at
night, to be again tracked in the morning, until the object of pursuit
could be overtaken. The brigalow beyond the river grew on a rising ground
of sharpedged red gravel, and, from a small opening, I saw the course of
the river running nearly northward. Here, then, I turned towards the east
to travel home by ascending the left bank, with the intention to cut off
the great sweep which the river described, as we had found on tracing it
down; and, in hopes we should so intercept any tributaries it might
receive from that side. At dusk, I met with one containing a fine lagoon,
and near this I fixed my bivouac. Yuranigh most firmly objected to our
sitting down close by the water, saying we might there be too easily
speared by the wild natives who were then, probably, on our track; but he
did not object to my bivouac on the more open plain adjacent, o