ater, having given great part of what had formerly been sent to a young
dying bullock, in hopes thereby to save its life. He also stated that a
tribe of natives were on their track about three miles behind. Baldock
had seen several bullocks dead on the way. In the evening the two first
teams were sent off as arranged. This day had also been very sultry,
especially towards evening.

9TH JANUARY.--Early this morning, the two relieving teams were despatched
as arranged, and at noon Mr. Kennedy and the whole entered the camp. We
had been very fortunate, under such trying circumstances, to suffer so
little loss, and I determined never to move the party again, until I
could ascertain where the water was at which it should encamp. I had been
previously assured by the young native that water was still to be found
at Cadduldury, and the disappointment had nearly proved fatal to the
whole party.

On the banks of the Bogan, the ATRIPLEX HAGNOIDES formed a round white-
looking bush.

I rode forward to Muda, accompanied by Dr. Stephenson and by Piper, and
had an interview with some of the heads of the old tribe, who remembered
my former visit, and very civilly accompanied me to show me my old track
and marked trees, which I found passed a little to the northward of my
present encampment. The chief, my old friend, had been killed in a fight
with the natives of the Macquarie, not long before. Two old grey-haired
men sitting silent in a gunya behind, were pointed out to me as his
brothers, one of whom so very much resembled him, that I had at first
imagined he was the man himself. These sat doubled up on their hams
opposite to each other, under the withered bushes, naked, and grey, and
melancholy--sad and hopeless types of their fading race!

The chief who formerly guided us so kindly had fallen in a hopeless
struggle for the existence of his tribe with the natives of the river
Macquarie, allied with the border police, on one side; and the wild
natives of the Darling on the other. All I could learn about the rest of
the tribe was, that the men were almost all dead, and that their wives
were chiefly servants at stock stations along the Macquarie.

The natives of Muda assured me there was no water nearer than Nyingan, a
large pond which I knew was 22 1/3 miles distant, in a direct line lower
down the Bogan. The ponds of Muda, their great store of water, and known
to white men as the largest on the Bogan, were alarmingly low, and it