et up their trunks. At
length I came on a native path conducting westward; but as it led to
rising ground with Atriplex halimoides, etc., I bent our course to the
south and reached the river at sunset.

LAKE WEROMBA.

Burnett and Piper followed the native path until they came to the bed of
a fine lake about half a mile across, and they met some natives who told
them that the name of it was Weromba. Mr. Stapylton also discovered a
small lake of the same sort near our route and south of the other. Both
sheets of water, like that of Waljeers, were surrounded by a ridge of
rising ground consisting of the red earth of the dry plains, and it was
covered with the salsolaceous shrubs peculiar to them. These lakes seem
to be supplied only from the highest floods of the river, and to
constitute a remarkable and peculiar feature in the character of the
surface. I had been informed of a very large one of the same kind named
Quawingame near the left bank of the Lachlan, and not far from its
junction with the Murrumbidgee; but the singular turn of the
first-mentioned river prevented me from seeing it.

NATIVE ENCAMPMENT.

As we drew near the river I perceived the huts of a tribe with a fire
smoking before each. I immediately sent back for the gins, but before
they could come up the natives whom we saw there noticed us and
immediately disappeared among the reeds, shrieking as if they had been
mad. Our females soon after approached their huts and called on them to
return, but in vain.

RIVERBANKS OF DIFFICULT ACCESS. BEST HORSE DROWNED.

A misfortune befel us this evening which made the party better aware of
the treacherous nature of the banks of this part of the Murrumbidgee. I
had just time before it got dark to find a place where the cattle could
approach the water, the banks being almost everywhere water-worn and
perpendicular, and consequently inaccessible and dangerous to animals in
descending to drink. To this point I had sent the sheep, and the men were
leading the horses also towards it when the foremost, which unfortunately
was the best, made a rush to the water at a steeper place, and fell into
the river. He swam however to the other side but, in returning, sank in
the middle of the stream, never to rise again. He had winkers on and I
think it probable that he had put his foot into a short rein which was
attached to the collar. This horse was of the Clydesdale breed and drew
the cart containing my instruments througho