natives rose gently up and poised his spear at him, and as soon as
he thought Macnamee was about to turn, he dropped as quietly into his
place. When I say the native got up, I do not mean that he stood up, but
that he raised himself sufficiently for the purpose he had in view. His
spear would not, therefore, have gone with much force, but I determined
it should not quit his hand, for had I observed any actual attempt to
throw it, I should unquestionably have shot him dead upon the spot.
The whole of the natives were awake, and it surprised me they did not
attempt to plunder us. They rose with the earliest dawn, and crowded round
the tents without any hesitation. We, consequently, thought it prudent to
start as soon as we had breakfasted.

FRASER IN DANGER.

We had all of us got into the boat, when Fraser remembered he had left his
powder-horn on shore. In getting out to fetch it, he had to push through
the natives. On his return, when his back was towards them, several
natives lifted their spears together, and I was so apprehensive they
would have transfixed him, that I called out before I seized my gun; on
which they lowered their weapons and ran away. The disposition to commit
personal violence was evident from these repeated acts of treachery; and
we should doubtless have suffered from it on some occasion or other, had
we not been constantly on the alert.

We had been drawing nearer the Morumbidgee every day. This was the last
tribe we saw on the Murray; and the following afternoon, to our great joy,
we quitted it and turned our boat into the gloomy and narrow channel of
its tributary. Our feelings were almost as strong when we re-entered it,
as they had been when we were launched from it into that river, on whose
waters we had continued for upwards of fifty-five days; during which
period, including the sweeps and bends it made, we could not have
travelled less than 1500 miles.

Our provisions were now running very short; we had, however, "broken the
neck of our journey," as the men said, and we looked anxiously to gaining
the depot; for we were not without hopes that Robert Harris would have
pushed forward to it with his supplies. We were quite puzzled on entering
the Morumbidgee, how to navigate its diminutive bends and its encumbered
channel. I thought poles would have been more convenient than oars; we
therefore stopped at an earlier hour than usual to cut some. Calling to
mind the robbery practised on us sho