rear.

At intervals after these several wagons rolled past, and finally when
nearly dusk, Wills and Fergusson, the foreman, rode out to their first
camping-ground at the village of Essendon, about seven miles distant.

Before the evening star, following close the crescent moon, had dropped
below the dark and distant hill range, the green near the church was
crowded by the picturesque confusion of the camp.

Above the fires of piled gum-tree bark and sticks rose soft plumes of
white smoke that scented the air fragrantly, and the red light of the
flames showed, as they would show many times again, the explorers' tents
in vivid relief against the coming night.

The horses and camels were unloaded and picketed, and the men sat at the
openings of their tents eating their supper, or stood in groups talking
to those anxious friends who had come out from Melbourne to say the last
good speed, or to repeat fears, to which imagination often lent the
wildest colouring, of perils that awaited the adventurers in the great
unknown land.

The wet weather which set in soon after their start made travelling very
slow as they crossed Victoria, though at that time all seemed to go well
with the party.

On fine days Wills found he was able to write his journal and do much of
his work whilst riding his camel; he sat behind the hump, and had his
instruments packed in front of it; thus he only needed to stop when the
bearings had to be carefully taken.

They halted for several days at Swan Hill, which was their last
resting-place before leaving the Colony. They were very hospitably
entertained there by the people.

This may have had something to do with the ill-content of some of the
party when on the march again, as at Balranald, beyond the Murray, Burke
found himself obliged to discharge the foreman, Fergusson.

The plan of their route had to be changed here, as they were told that
all along the Lower Darling, where they intended to travel, there was
absolutely no food for their horses, but a plant called the Darling Pea,
which made the animals that ate it mad.

Burke was at this time constantly irritated by Landells refusing to
allow the camels to travel the distance of a day's march, or to carry
their proper burden; he was naturally full of anxiety to push on while
the season was favourable, and impatient and hasty when anything
occurred to hinder their progress.

Landells insisted upon taking a quantity of rum for the use of