was very gradually arrived at, and
only as we fell in with the successive families. Moreover, as my boy
was very young, it may be that he was more eager in communicating to those
who had no idea of them, the wonders he had seen, than in making inquiries
on points that were indifferent to him.

CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.

We passed a very large plain in the course of the day, which was bounded
by forests of box, cypress, and the acacia pendula, of red sandy soil and
parched appearance. The Morumbidgee evidently overflows a part of the
lands we crossed, to a greater extent than heretofore, though the alluvial
deposits beyond its influence were still both rich and extensive. The
crested pigeon made its appearance on the acacias, which I took to be a
sure sign of our approach to a country more than ordinarily subject to
overflow; since on the Macquarie and the Darling, those birds were found
only to inhabit the regions of marshes, or spaces covered by the acacia
pendula, or the polygonum. We had not, however, yet seen any of the latter
plant, although we were shortly destined to be almost lost amidst fields
of it.

CHANGE IN THE COUNTRY.

We were now approaching that parallel of longitude in which the other
known rivers of New Holland had been found to exhaust themselves; the
least change therefore, for the worse was sufficient to raise my
apprehensions; yet, although the Morumbidgee had received no tributary
from the Dumot downwards, and was leading us into an apparently endless
level, I saw no indication of its decreasing in size, or in the rapidity
of its current. Certainly, however, I had, from the character of the
country around us, an anticipation that a change was about to take place
in it, and this anticipation was verified in the course of the following
day. The alluvial flats gradually decreased in breadth, and we journeyed
mostly over extensive and barren plains, which in many places approached
so near the river as to form a part of its bank. They were covered with
the salsolaceous class of plants, so common in the interior, in a red
sandy soil, and were as even as a bowling green. The alluvial spaces near
the river became covered with reeds, and, though subject to overflow at
every partial rise of it, were so extremely small as scarcely to afford
food for our cattle. Flooded-gum trees of lofty size grew on these reedy
spaces, and marked the line of the river, but the timber of the interior
appeared stunted