ned sooner than I expected, and after following the
river down twelve miles, without finding any. I was now within the same
distance of Duck Creek, in which Mr. Larmer had found abundance of water
when I sent him to survey it upwards during my last return journey up the
Bogan. It also seemed, from the direction in which Piper pointed, that
the old gins referred to Duck Creek, as containing water; and as the
course of that creek, so far as shown on maps, led even more directly to
the Darling than did the Bogan, I was willing in such a season of extreme
drought, to avail myself of its waters. My eye had been much injured by
straining at stars while at the camp near Walwadyer, and I was obliged to
send Mr. Kennedy on one of my own horses, followed by Graham, to examine
the water in Duck Creek. I instructed him to proceed on a bearing of 35 deg.
E. of North, until he should reach the creek, and if he found water in it
to return direct to the camp, but that if water was not found on first
making the creek, then he was to follow Duck Creek up to its junction
with an eastern branch, surveyed also by Mr. Larmer, and to return thence
to the camp on a bearing of 240 deg.. I also sent Corporal Macavoy with
Yuranigh down the Bogan, to ascertain if the channel contained any pond
between our camp and the part previously examined by Mr. Kennedy.

This officer returned from Duck Creek after an absence of twelve hours,
and reported that he had found no water in Duck Creek after examining its
bed twelve miles; but that he had found a fine lagoon on the plains near
the head of the eastern branch, but around which there was no grass, all
having been recently burnt.

20TH JANUARY.--Macavoy returned at seven A.M., saying he had been twenty-
four miles down the Bogan without finding any water. About the same time
Sergeant Niblett, in charge of the bullocks, came to inform me that these
animals were looking very ill, and could not drink the mud remaining in
the pond. At the same time intelligence was brought me that four of the
horses had broken their tether ropes during the night, and that William
Baldock had been absent in search of them on foot, from an early hour in
the morning. I immediately sent back the whole of the bullocks to
Nyingan, with a dray containing the empty harness casks, also the horses,
and a cart carrying all our other empty casks; and the whole of the
cattle and horses returned in the evening with all the casks filled.