black swans and ducks. They stopped for the night at seven o'clock in a
small wood, at a mile from the beach, but where there was no fresh
water, having travelled to-day, they supposed, upwards of twenty miles.

_Friday, Dec. 17th._ They proceed this morning from the beach in a
direction about N.N.W. three or four miles in quest of water, when they
arrive on the banks of a creek, where they have the good fortune to find
abundance of good water and of grass. Here they remain the day, in order
to refresh the cattle, who are not a little in want of this timely
relief, more particularly as it is proposed to commence their return
to-morrow. This determination of so soon retracing their steps, though
it cost them much regret, had become indispensable, not only from the
extreme scantiness of their remaining supplies, and the certainty of the
many difficulties they would have to encounter, but still more so from
consideration that the mere circumstance of a fall of rain by swelling
the streams, might, in the weak and ill-provided state to which the
whole party were reduced, render their return altogether impracticable.
(Four weeks' flour at reduced allowance and a small quantity of tea and
sugar, but no animal food; independently of which, the ropes and other
material employed for crossing streams were now almost utterly unfit for
use.)




THE INTERIOR OF THE CONTINENT.

+Source.+--Expeditions in Australia (Sturt, 1833), Vol. I pp. 1-2, 29,
45, 73, 85-87.