young men, and supported themselves in a very erect posture when standing
or walking. There were many children with the women, among whom colds
seemed to prevail. It blew heavily from the N.W. during the night, and a
little rain fell in the early part of the morning. Our route during the
day, was over as melancholy a tract as ever was travelled. The plains to
the N. and N.W. bounded the horizon; not a tree of any kind was visible
upon them. It was equally open to the S., and it appeared as if the river
was decoying us into a desert, there to leave us in difficulty and in
distress. The very mirage had the effect of boundlessness in it, by
blending objects in one general hue; or, playing on the ground, it cheated
us with an appearance of water, and on arriving at the spot, we found a
continuation of the same scorching plain, over which we were moving,
instead of the stream we had hoped for.

The cattle about this time began to suffer, and, anxious as I was to push
on, I was obliged to shorten my journeys, according to circumstances.
Amidst the desolation around us, the river kept alive our hopes. If it
traversed deserts, it might reach fertile lands, and it was to the issue
of the journey that we had to look for success. It here, however,
evidently overflowed its banks more extensively than heretofore, and
broad belts of reeds were visible on either side of it, on which the
animals exclusively subsisted. Most of the natives had followed us, and
their patience and abstinence surprised me exceedingly. Some of them had
been more than twenty-four hours without food, and yet seemed as little
disposed to seek it as ever. I really thought they expected me to supply
their wants, but as I could not act so liberal a scale, George M'Leay
undeceived them; after which they betook themselves to the river, and got
a supply of muscles. I rather think their going so frequently into the
water engenders a catarrh, or renders them more liable to it than they
otherwise would be. In the afternoon the wind shifted to the S.W. It blew