LAKE BENANEE.

This wood we also at length reached, and we found that it encircled a
beautiful lake full sixteen miles in circumference and swarming with
natives both on the beach and in canoes.

The alarm of our arrival was then resounding among the natives whom I saw
in great numbers along its western shores. This lake, like all those we
had previously seen, was surrounded by a ridge of red earth, rather
higher than the adjacent plains, and it was evidently fed, during high
floods, by the creek we had crossed. I travelled due west from the berg
of this lake along the plain which extended in that direction a mile and
three-quarters. We then came to another woody hollow or channel in which
I could at first see only a field of polygonum, although we soon found in
it a broad deep reach of still water. In tracing it to the left or from
the lake towards the river, we found it increased so much in width and
depth, after tracing it three-quarters of a mile, that a passage in that
direction seemed quite out of the question. Many of the natives who had
followed us in a body from the lake overtook us here. They assured Piper
that we were near the junction of this piece of water with the Millewa
(Murray) and that in the opposite direction, or towards the lake, they
could show us a ford. We accordingly turned and we came to a narrow place
where the natives had a fish-net set across. On seeing us preparing to
pass through the ford, they told Piper that, at a point still higher up,
we might cross where the channel was dry. Thither therefore we went, the
natives accompanying us in considerable numbers, but each carrying a
green bough. Among them were several old men who took the most active
part and who were very remarkable from the bushy fulness and whiteness of
their beards and hair; the latter growing thickly on the back and
shoulders gave them a very singular appearance, and accorded well with
that patriarchal authority which the old men seem to maintain to an
astonishing degree among these native tribes. The aged chiefs from time
to time beckoned to us, repeating very often and fast at the same time
"goway, goway, goway," which, strange to say, means "come, come, come."
Their gesture and action being also precisely such as we should use in
calling out "go away!" We crossed the channel at length where the bed was
quite dry, and pitched our tents on the opposite side.

DISCOVER THE NATIVES TO BE THOSE LAST SEEN ON THE DARLING.