in an extent of more than 180 miles. They are apparently scattered along
it in families. I was rather surprised that my boy understood their
language well, since it certainly differed from that of the Macquarie
tribes, but nevertheless as these people do not wander far, our
information as to what was before us was very gradually arrived at, and
only as we fell in with the successive families. Moreover, as my boy
was very young, it may be that he was more eager in communicating to those
who had no idea of them, the wonders he had seen, than in making inquiries
on points that were indifferent to him.

CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.

We passed a very large plain in the course of the day, which was bounded
by forests of box, cypress, and the acacia pendula, of red sandy soil and
parched appearance. The Morumbidgee evidently overflows a part of the
lands we crossed, to a greater extent than heretofore, though the alluvial
deposits beyond its influence were still both rich and extensive. The
crested pigeon made its appearance on the acacias, which I took to be a
sure sign of our approach to a country more than ordinarily subject to
overflow; since on the Macquarie and the Darling, those birds were found
only to inhabit the regions of marshes, or spaces covered by the acacia
pendula, or the polygonum. We had not, however, yet seen any of the latter
plant, although we were shortly destined to be almost lost amidst fields
of it.

CHANGE IN THE COUNTRY.


We were now approaching that parallel of longitude in which the other
known rivers of New Holland had been found to exhaust themselves; the