on the south shore had taken fright, left their huts and run to
the main camp, I was glad to find, when we rode up, that they remained
quietly there, under cover from the heavy rain. These huts or gunyas
consisted of a few green boughs which had just been put up for shelter
from the rain then falling. The tribe consisted of about a hundred.

WOMEN.

The females and children were in huts at some distance from those of the
men. A great number sat huddled together and cowered down under each
gunya, their skinny limbs being so folded before their bodies that the
head rested upon the knees. Among the faces were some which, being
hideously painted white (the usual badge of mourning) grinned horribly;
and the whole was so characteristic a specimen of life among the
aborigines that the heavy rain did not prevent me from making a sketch.
While I was thus employed the natives very hospitably made a fire in a
vacant gunya, evidently for the purpose of warming poor Barney, our
guide, who seemed miserably cold, having no covering except a jacket,
thoroughly wet.

MEN.

The men were in general strong, healthy, and muscular, and among them was
one who measured six feet four inches, as we afterwards ascertained at
our camp. My chief object in visiting the lake was to cultivate a good
understanding with these natives in the hopes that one of them might be
induced to accompany me down the Lachlan. The facility with which Piper,
then at a distance of 200 miles from his native place, Bathurst,
conversed with these people showed that their dialects are not so varied
as is commonly believed; and I had little doubt that he would be
understood, even on the banks of the Darling.

THEIR ACCOUNT OF THE COUNTRY LOWER DOWN. OOLAWAMBILOA.

He ascertained from one of these natives of Regent's lake that after
eight of our daily journeys, according to his comprehension, the bed of
the Lachlan would contain no water, and that we must go to the right
across "the middle," as Piper understood, reaching in four days more a
lagoon called Burrabidgin or Burrabadimba: that there I must leave the
carts and go with the native on horseback; and that in two days'
travelling at the rate we could then proceed, we should reach
Oolawambiloa, a very great water. They also said that water could be
found in the bush at the end of each of those four days' journey by one
of their tribe who would go with us and who had twice been at the great
water. All this news ma