down its
banks into the new settlement to save it from the trials and vicissitudes
to which colonies, less favourably situated, have been exposed; and
England, throughout her wide domains, possessed not, for its extent, a
fairer or a more promising dependency than the province of South
Australia. Such, there can be no doubt, have been the results of an
expedition from which human foresight could have anticipated no practical
good.

During my progress down the Murray River I had passed the junction of a
very considerable stream with it [Note 3. The Darling], in lat. 34 degrees
8 minutes and long. 142 degrees. Circumstances, however, prevented my
examining it to any distance above its point of union with the main river.
Yet, coming as it did, direct from the north, and similar as it was to the
Darling in its upper branches, neither had I, nor any of the men then with
me, and who had accompanied me when I discovered the Darling in 1828, the
slightest doubt as to its identity. Still, the fact might reasonably be
disputed by others, more especially as there was abundant space for the
formation of another river, between the point where I first struck the
Darling and this junction.

It was at all events a matter of curious speculation to the world at
large, and was a point well worthy of further investigation. Such
evidently was the opinion of her Majesty's Government at the time, for in
accordance with it, in the year 1835, Sir Thomas Mitchell, the
Surveyor-General of the colony of New South Wales, was directed to lead
an expedition into the interior, to solve the question, by tracing the
further course of the Darling. This officer left Sydney in May, 1835, and
pushing to the N.W. gradually descended to the low country on which the
Macquarie river all but terminates its short course. In due time he
gained the Bogan river (the New Year's Creek of my first expedition, and
so called by my friend, Mr. Hamilton Hume, who accompanied me as my
assistant, because he crossed it on that day), and tracing it downwards
to the N. W., Sir Thomas Mitchell ultimately gained the banks of the
Darling, where I had before been upon it, in latitude 30 degrees. He then
traced it downwards to the W.S.W {S.S.W. in published text} to latitude
32 degrees 26 seconds. At this point he determined to abandon all further
pursuit of the river, and he accordingly returned to Sydney, in
consequence, as he informs us, of his having ascertained that just belo