uld have
proceeded. Had we picked up a stone as indicating our approach to high
land, I would have gone on; or had there been a break in the level of the
country, or even a change in the vegetation. But we had left all traces of
the natives far behind us; and this seemed a desert they never
entered--that not even a bird inhabited. I could not encourage a hope of
success, and, therefore, gave up the point; not from want of means, but a
conviction of the inutility of any further efforts. If there is any blame
to be attached to the measure, it is I who am in fault, but none who had
not like me traversed the interior at such a season, would believe the
state of the country over which I had wandered. During the short interval
I had been out, I had seen rivers cease to flow before me, and sheets of
water disappear; and had it not been for a merciful Providence, should,
ere reaching the Darling, have been overwhelmed by misfortune.

I am giving no false picture of the reality. So long had the drought
continued, that the vegetable kingdom was almost annihilated, and minor
vegetation had disappeared. In the creeks, weeds had grown and withered,
and grown again; and young saplings were now rising in their beds,
nourished by the moisture that still remained; but the largest forest
trees were drooping, and many were dead. The emus, with outstretched
necks, gasping for breath, searched the channels of the rivers for water,
in vain; and the native dog, so thin that it could hardly walk, seemed to
implore some merciful hand to despatch it. How the natives subsisted it
was difficult to say, but there was no doubt of the scarcity of food
among them.

We arrived in camp at a late hour, and having nothing to detain us longer,
prepared for our retreat in the morning. The natives had remained with the
party during the greater part of the day, and had only left them a short
time prior to our arrival.

When examining the creek on which we had been encamped for some days,
Mr. Hume observed a small junction; and as we knew we were almost
due N. of the marshes of the Macquarie, both of us were anxious to
ascertain whence it originated. To return to Mount Harris, by retracing
our steps up the Castlereagh, would have entailed the severest distress
upon us; we the rather preferred proceeding up this creek, and taking our
chance for a supply of water. We therefore crossed Morrisset's chain of
ponds, and encamped in the angle formed by the junction