ad reached the very spot, at which Mr. Oxley
lost the channel of the river in 1818.

The next day I moved to the place where Mr. Hume had struck upon the
channel of the river, but was again doubtful in what direction to proceed.

The marsh, at the commencement of which we now found ourselves, being the
third from Mount Foster, but the second great one, seemed to extend beyond
us to the north for many miles, but varying in breadth. In the evening I
went in the boat up the channel, and found it at first, deep and sullen,
as that of the river above. It soon however, narrowed, and the weeds
formed over its surface, so that I abandoned the boat and walked along a
path up it. I had not gone far when the channel divided; two smaller
channels came, the one from the southern, and the other from the western
parts of the marsh into it. There was an evident declination where they
were, and it was at their junction the river again rallied and formed.
On my return to the camp, Mr. Hume and I went down the river, but found
that about a mile it lost itself, and spread its waters ever the extensive
marsh before it.

In this extremity, I knew not what movement to make, as Mr. Hume had been
checked in his progress north. I therefore determined to ascertain the
nature of the country to the eastward and to the westward, that I might
move accordingly; I proposed to Mr. Hume, to take a week's provisions,
with two attendants, and go to the north-east, in order again to turn the
marsh, but with the expectation that the angle formed by the junction of
the Castlereagh with the Macquarie would arrest its progress, as the last
was fast approaching the former.

I myself determined to cross the river, and to skirt the marshes on the
left, and in case they turned off to the north east, as they appeared to
do, it was my intention to pursue a N.W. course into the interior, to
learn the nature of it. With these views I left the camp on the 31st of
December, and did not return until the 5th of January. Having found early
in my journey, from the change of soil and of timber, that I was leaving
the neighbourhood of the Macquarie, I followed a N.W. course, from a more
northerly one, and struck at once across the country, under an impression
that Mr. Hume would have made the river again long before my return.
I found, after travelling between twenty and thirty miles, the country
began to rise; and at the end of my journey, I made a hill of considerable
ele