in
many places, an agricultural country, still intersected by creeks, that
were too deep for the water to have dried in them. The country more
remote from the river, however, began to assume more and more the
character and appearance of the northern interior. I rode into several
plains, the soil of which was either a red sandy loam, bare of vegetation,
or a rotten and blistered earth, producing nothing but rhagodiae,
salsolae, and misembrianthemum.

We fell in with another tribe of blacks during the journey, to whom we
were literally consigned by those who had been previously with us, and who
now turned back, while our new friends took the lead of the drays. They
were two fine young men, but had very ugly wives, and were for a long time
extremely diffident. I found that I could obtain but little information
through my black boy,--whether from his not understanding me, or because
he was too cunning, is uncertain. One of these young men, however,
clearly stated that he had seen the tracks of bullocks and horses, a long
time ago, to the N.N.W. in the direction of some detached hills, that were
visible from 20 to 25 miles distant. He remembered them, he said, as a
boy, and added that the white men were without water. It was, therefore,
clear that he alluded to Mr. Oxley's excursion, northerly from the
Lachlan, and I had no doubt on my mind, that he had been on one of that
officer's encampments, and that the hills to the north of us were those
to the opposite base of which he had penetrated. I was determined,
therefore, if practicable, to reach these hills, deeming it a matter of
great importance to connect the surveys, but I deferred my journey for a
day or two, in hopes, from the continued northerly course of the river,
that we should have approached them nearer.

In the evening we fell in with some more blacks, among whom were two
brothers, of those who were acting as our guides. One had a very pretty
girl as a wife, and all the four brothers were very good-looking young
men. There cannot, I should think, be a numerous population on the banks
of the Morumbidgee, from the fact of our having seen not more than fifty
in an extent of more than 180 miles. They are apparently scattered along
it in families. I was rather surprised that my boy understood their
language well, since it certainly differed from that of the Macquarie
tribes, but nevertheless as these people do not wander far, our
information as to what was before us