hes, but they proved that
this lake had once contained mussels and the balyan or bulrush, a root
eaten by the natives and cooked in such ovens as these. The other lake
was surrounded by a circle of yarra trees and had but recently become
dry, the earth in it being still without vegetation and covered with
innumerable native companions and white cockatoos. Finding no indication
of the river, notwithstanding the presence of so many yarra trees, I
turned to the east towards another line of them which appeared still more
promising. There however we encountered the dry bed only of a small creek
which we crossed, and continued eastward, passing over much grassy land,
and through much wood of the box or goborro species of eucalyptus. We
travelled thus upwards of seven miles beyond the dry creek without
discovering any sign of the river, although we had previously traced it
so far in pursuing a much more southerly direction.

NATIVES FLY AT OUR APPROACH.

The natives were heard in this wood chopping with their stone hatchets
but they fled at our approach. On entering a small plain we saw their
deserted fire on the opposite side. Beyond this another plain, still more
extensive, appeared before us, and a few yarra trees on the horizon gave
some promise of water, though not of the river.

ARRIVAL IN THE DARK, ON THE BANK OF A WATERCOURSE.

Before I reached the spot and while far ahead of the party darkness had
overtaken us; but I found there a deep creek with some water in large
ponds; and by lighting a fire the carts at length came up to us, after a
journey of nineteen miles. This seemed by moonlight such a singular place
that I was anxious for daylight to see at what we had arrived.

June 24.

I expected to find the main stream not far from the ponds, but the
morning light shone over a plain which extended in a north-western
direction to the very horizon. It was bounded on the north by very
distant trees which had not the usual appearance of trees distinguishing
the river. The country on all sides seemed perfectly level, and if there
was any exception at all it was in the box forests to the southward
whence we had come, and where the land seemed lower than the plain on
which we had encamped. The bed of the creek was full twenty feet below
the general surface. The symmetry of the curves described by it was
remarkable, and it was rendered still more striking by a narrow line of
rushes which had grown on the margin of the wat