iderable. We gathered on Coccaparra and Mount Porteous
several bulbous plants of a species quite new to me, the root being very
large. There also we found a remarkable acacia, having long upright
needle-like leaves among which a few small tufts of yellow flowers were
sparingly scattered.** We encamped on a pond of the river named
Burrabadimba, after travelling fifteen miles.

(*Footnote. S. esuriale, Lindley manuscripts; caule humili suffruticoso,
aculcis subulatis tenuibus in apice ramulorum et costa, foliis
lineari-oblongis obtusis subrepandis utrinque cinereis stellato-pilosis,
pedunculis subtrifloris, calycibus campanulatis pentagonis 5-dentatis
stellato-pilosis corollis tomentosis multo brevioribus.)

(**Footnote. This proved to be the rare A. quadrilateralis of De
Candolle.)

LEAVE THE LACHLAN TO TRAVEL WESTWARD.

April 20.

After proceeding some miles on this day's journey our Cudjallagong guide
pointed in a west-north-west direction as the way to Oolawambiloa.
Leaving therefore the Kalare or Lachlan, near a great bend in its general
course which below this (according to Mr. Oxley's map) was south-west, we
followed the route proposed by my native friend as it was precisely in
the direction by which I wished to approach the Darling. The universal
scarcity of water had however deprived me of every hope that any could be
found in that country, at a season when we often sought it in vain, even
in the bed of one of the large rivers of the country. Our guide however
knew the nature of our wants, and also that of the country, and I eagerly
followed him towards a hill, the most distant and most westerly on the
northern horizon.

NO WATER.

At sunset we halted full twenty miles short of that hill, beside the bed
of a small river, resembling in capacity and the nature of its banks that
of the Bogan; but to the manifest consternation of our guide we could
find no water in it, although some ponds had been only recently dried up.
This watercourse, he informed me, was the same which I had seen passing
by Murrangong, but he said it did not return its waters to the Lachlan, a
circumstance which I could not understand. Booraran was the name he gave
it. He went with some of our people in the dark and found a few quarts of
water two miles beyond it, but our cattle were obliged to pass the night
without any. The barometer had been falling for several days and the wind
arising suddenly at 9 P.M. brought a misty mass of cloud