e before midnight, it commenced
raining, and both wind and rain continued to increase in violence until
about seven in the morning of the 27th; when the weather moderated.

Two or three blacks had accompanied us from the last tribe, and had lain
down near the fire. As the storm increased, however, they got up, and
swimming across the river, left us to ourselves. This was a very unusual
thing, nor can I satisfy myself as to their object, unless it was to get
into shelter, for these people though they wander naked over the country,
and are daily in the water, feel the cold and rain very acutely.

Observing the clouds collecting for so many days, I indulged hopes that we
were near high lands, perhaps mountains; but from the loftiest spots we
could see nothing but a level and dark horizon. Anxious to gain as correct
a knowledge of the country as possible we had, in the course of the day,
ascended a sandy ridge that was about a mile from the river. The view from
the summit of this ridge promised to be more extensive than any we had of
late been enabled to obtain; and as far as actual observation went, we
were not disappointed, although in every other particular, the landscape
was one of the most unpromising description. To the S. and S.E., the
country might be said to stretch away in one unbroken plain, for it was so
generally covered with wood that every inequality was hidden from our
observation. To the S.W. the river line was marked out by a succession of
red cliffs, similar to those we had already passed. To the north, the
interior was evidently depressed; it was overgrown with a low scrub, and
seemed to be barren in the extreme. The elevations upon which we stood
were similar to the sand-hills near the coast, and had not a blade of
grass upon them. Yet, notwithstanding the sterility of the soil, the
large white amarillis which grew in such profusion on the alluvial plains
of the Macquarie, was also abundant here. But it had lost its dazzling
whiteness, and had assumed a sickly yellow colour and its very appearance
indicated that it was not in a congenial soil.

LINDESAY RIVER.

We passed two very considerable junctions, the one coming from the S.E.,
the other from the north. Both had currents in them, but the former was
running much stronger than the latter. It falls into the Murray, almost
opposite to the elevations I have been describing, and, if a judgment
can be hazarded from its appearance at its embouchure, it m