xpecting that a friendly intercourse might be maintained
even with the Darling natives, and to what distance the influence of the
Government station at Moorunde had extended, upon the conciliatory system
that had been adopted, limited though it was by an inadequacy of funds to
provide for such a more extended and liberal treatment of the Aborigines
as I should wish to have adopted.

"Sir,--Feeling assured that the Governor would be anxious to hear from me
as soon as possible after the receipt of my letters from Lake Victoria, I
should have taken the earliest opportunity of forwarding despatches to
his Excellency after I had ascertained whether the reports I had heard of
the massacre of a party of overlanders at the lagoons on the Darling was
founded in fact or not; but having been obliged to cross over from the
ana-branch of the Darling to that river itself for water,--and its
unlooked-for course having taken me greatly to the eastward, I had no
opportunity by which to send to Moorunde, although I was most anxious to
allay any apprehensions my former letter might have raised as to the
safety of my party. I tried to induce several natives to be the bearers
of my despatches, but they seemed unwilling to undertake so long a
journey; the arrival, therefore, of a messenger from Moorunde was a most
welcome occurrence, as he proposes returning to that place immediately,
and will be the bearer of this communication to you.

"In continuing, for his Excellency's information, the detail of the
proceedings of the expedition under my orders since I last addressed you,
I have the honour to state that I had advanced a considerable way up the
Darling before I ascertained satisfactorily the true grounds of the
report I had heard at Lake Victoria, and was enabled to dismiss all
further anxiety on the subject from my mind.

"It referred to the affray which took place on the Darling, opposite to
Laidley's Ponds, between Major Mitchell and the natives; and I conclude
that the circumstance of our being about to proceed to the same place,
recalled a transaction which had occurred eight years ago to their minds;
for we can trace a connection between the story we heard at the Lake, and
what we have heard upon the spot; but all the circumstances were at first
told to us with such minuteness, that coupling them with the character
Major Mitchell has given of the Darling natives, and the generally
received opinion of their ferocity and daring, w