inhabitants were now dispersed in other places, and only assembled here
to collect the box-tree seeds, for small boughs of that tree were lying
in heaps on the ground, and the trees themselves bore the marks of having
been stripped. There were two or three huts in the village of large size,
to each of which two smaller ones were attached, opening into its main
apartment, but none of them had been left in such order as those I have
already described.

It being the hour of sunset when we reached the well, the trees were
crowded with birds of all kinds coming for water, and the reader may
judge of the straits to which they were driven, when he learns that they
dived down into so dark a chamber to procure the life-sustaining element
it contained. The wildest birds of the forest were here obliged to yield
to the wants of nature at any risk, but notwithstanding, they were
exceedingly wary; and we shot only a few cockatoos. The fact of there
being so large a well at this point, (a work that must have required the
united labour of a powerful tribe to complete), assured us that this
distant part of the interior, however useless and forbidding to civilized
man, was not without inhabitants, but at the same time it plainly
indicated, that water must be scarce. Indeed, considering that the birds
of the forest had powers of flight to go where they would, I could not
but regard it as a most unfavourable sign, that so many had collected
here. Had this well contained a sufficiency of water, it would have been
of the utmost value to us, but there was not more than enough for our
wants, so that, although I should gladly have halted for a day, as our
horses were both ill and tired, necessity obliged me to continue my
journey, and accordingly on the 29th we resumed our progress into the
interior on our original course. At about a mile we broke through the
forest, and entered an open earthy plain, such as I believe man never
before crossed. Subject to be laid under water by the creek we had just
left, and to the effects of an almost vertical sun, its surface was
absolutely so rent and torn by solar heat, that there was scarcely room
for the horses to tread, and they kept constantly slipping their hind
feet into chasms from eight to ten feet deep, into which the earth fell
with a hollow rumbling sound, as if into a grave. The poor horse in the
cart had a sad task, and it surprised me, how we all at length got safely
over the plain, which was b