ng mounds surrounded by and covered with dead branches
and pieces of wood.* On these lay the same singular casts of the head in
white plaster which we had before seen only at Fort Bourke.** It is
indeed curious to observe the different modes of burying adopted by the
natives on different rivers. For instance on the Bogan they bury in
graves covered like our own and surrounded with curved walks and
ornamented ground.*** On the Lachlan under lofty mounds of earth, seats
being made around them. On the Murrumbidgee and Murray the graves are
covered with well thatched huts containing dried grass for bedding and
enclosed by a parterre of a particular shape, like the inside of a
whale-boat.**** On the Darling, as above stated, the graves are in
mounds* covered with dead branches and limbs of trees, and are surrounded
by a ditch, which here we found encircled by a fence of dead limbs and
branches.

(*Footnote. See Plate 16 volume 1.)

(**Footnote. See Volume 1.)

(***Footnote. See Plate 20 volume 1.)

(****Footnote. See above.)

REDUCED APPEARANCE OF THE DARLING.

As we proceeded the sandhills became more numerous and their surface
softer; while the scrub was at length so close that it was difficult to
follow any particular bearing in travelling through it. Near the river
the surface was broken up by beds of dry lagoons which evidently became
branches of the main stream in times of flood; and the intervening ground
was covered with Polygonum junceum. At length I reached an angle of the
river and encamped on a small flat beside a sandhill. Here the Darling
was only a chain of ponds and I walked across its channel dry-shod, the
bed consisting of coarse sand and angular fragments of ferruginous
sandstone. The width and depth between the immediate banks were about the
same as I had found them in the most narrow and shallow parts during my
former journey. While I stood on the adverse side or right bank of this
hopeless river I began to think I had pursued its course far enough. The
identity was no longer a question.

DESERT CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.

The country on its banks in this part presented also the same unvaried
desert features that it did in the districts examined by us during the
preceding year. The Murray, unlike the Darling, was a permanent river,
and I thought it advisable to exhaust no more of my means in the survey
of deserts but rather employ them and the time still at my disposal in
exploring the sources o