tercourse with these people was incessant from
the time we first met them, and on all occasions they behaved remarkably
well, nor could we have seen less than than two hundred and fifty of them.

Our return is to be attributable to the want of water alone, and it is
impossible for me to describe the effects of the drought on animal as well
as vegetable nature. The natives are wandering in the desert, and it is
melancholy to reflect on the necessity which obliges them to drink the
stinking and loathsome water they do--birds sit gasping in the trees and
are quite thin--the wild dog prowls about in the day-time unable to avoid
us, and is as lean as he can be in a living state, while minor vegetation
is dead, and the very trees are drooping. I have noticed all these things
in my Journal I shall have the honour of submitting through you, for the
Governor's perusal and information, on my return. Finally, I fear our
expedition will not pave the way to any ultimate benefit; although it has
been the means by which two very doubtful questions,--the course of the
Macquarie, and the nature of the interior, have been solved; for it is
beyond doubt, that the interior for 250 miles beyond its former known
limits to the W.N.W., so far from being a shoal sea, has been ascertained
not only to have considerable elevations upon it, but is in itself a table
land to all intents and purposes, and has scarcely water on its surface to
support its inhabitants.

I beg you will inform His Excellency the Governor, that I have on all
occasions received the most ready and valuable assistance from Mr, Hume.
His intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the natives,
enabled him to enter into intercourse with them, and chiefly contributed
to the peaceable manner in which we have journeyed, while his previous
experience put it in his power to be of real use to me. I cannot but say
he has done an essential service to future travellers, and to the colony
at large, by his conduct on all occasions since he has been with me; nor
should I be doing him justice, if I did not avail myself of the first
opportunity of laying my sentiments before the Governor, through you. I am
happy to add that every individual of the party deserves my warmest
approbation, and that they have, one and all, borne their distresses,
trifling certainly, but still unusual, with cheerfulness, and that they
have at all times been attentive to their duty, and obedient to their
o