and of the river, which I purposed examining with the earliest dawn.
If the latter should be found to run into a region of reeds, a boat would
be necessary to enable me to ascertain its direction; but, if ultimately
it should be discovered to exhaust itself, we should have to strike into
the interior on a N.W. course, in search of the Darling. I could not think
of putting the whale-boat together in our then state of uncertainty, and
it struck me that a smaller one could sooner he prepared for the purposes
for which I should require it. These considerations, together with the
view I had taken of the measures I might at last be forced into,
determined me, on rising, to order Clayton to fell a suitable tree, and to
prepare a saw-pit. The labour was of no consideration, and even if
eventually the boat should not be wanted, no injury would arise, and it
was better to take time by the forelock. Having marked a tree preparatory
to leaving the camp, M'Leay and I started at an early hour on an excursion
of deeper interest than any we had as yet undertaken; to examine the
reeds, not only for the purpose of ascertaining their extent, if possible,
but also to guide us in our future measures. We rode for some miles along
the river side, but observed in it no signs, either of increase or of
exhaustion. Its waters, though turbid, were deep, and its current still
rapid. Its banks, too, were lofty, and showed no evidence of decreasing
in height, so as to occasion an overflow of them, as had been the case
with the Macquarie. We got among vast bodies of reeds, but the plains of
the interior were visible beyond them. We were evidently in a hollow, and
the decline of country was plainly to the southward of west. Every thing
tended to strengthen my conviction that we were still far from the
termination of the river. The character it had borne throughout, and its
appearance now so far to the westward, gave me the most lively hopes that
it would make good its way through the vast level into which it fell, and
that its termination would accord with its promise. Besides, I daily
anticipated its junction with some stream of equal, if not of greater