qualified to accompany me on the desperate adventure for which I was
preparing.

[Sturt accordingly built the whaleboat and embarked on the river.]

_Jan. 14th._ The men looked anxiously out ahead, for the singular change
in the river had impressed on them an idea that we were approaching its
termination, or near some adventure. On a sudden, the river took a
general southern direction, but, in its tortuous course, swept round to
every point of the compass with the greatest irregularity. We were
carried at a fearful rate down its gloomy and contracted banks, and, in
such a moment of excitement, had little time to pay attention to the
country through which we were passing. It was, however, observed that
chalybeate springs were numerous close to the water's edge. At 3 p.m.
Hopkinson called out that we were approaching a junction, and in less
than a minute afterwards we were hurried into a broad and noble river.

It is impossible for me to describe the effect of so instantaneous a
change upon us. The boats were allowed to drift along at pleasure, and
such was the force with which we had been shot out of the Morumbidgee
that we were carried nearly to the bank opposite its _embouchure_,
whilst we continued to gaze in silent astonishment at the capacious
channel we had entered; and when we looked for that by which we had been
led into it, we could hardly believe that the insignificant gap that
presented itself to us was, indeed, the termination of the beautiful and
noble stream whose course we had thus successfully followed. I can only
compare the relief we experienced to that which the seaman feels on
weathering the rock upon which he expected his vessel to have struck, to
the calm which succeeds moments of feverish anxiety, when the dread of
danger is succeeded by certainty of escape.