it, in 1828, to lat. 32 degrees 26 minutes, and had marked down some
hills to the westward of it. Still I do not think that I detract from his
merit, and I am sure I do not wish to do so, when I say that his having
so marked them can hardly be said to have given us any certain knowledge
of the Cis-Darling interior.

More than sixteen years had elapsed from the period when I undertook the
exploration of the Murray River, to that at which I commenced my
preparations for an attempt to penetrate Central Australia. Desolate,
however, as the country for the most part had been, through which I
passed, my voyage down that river had been the forerunner of events I
could neither have anticipated or foreseen. I returned indeed to Sydney,
disheartened and dissatisfied at the result of my investigations. To all
who were employed in that laborious undertaking, it had proved one of the
severest trial and of the greatest privation; to myself individually it
had been one of ceaseless anxiety. We had not, as it seemed, made any
discovery to gild our enterprise, had found no approximate country likely
to be of present or remote advantage to the Government by which we had
been sent forth; the noble river on whose buoyant waters we were hurried
along, seemed to have been misplaced, through such an extent of desert
did it pass, as if it was destined thus never to be of service to
civilized man, and for a short time the honour of a successful
undertaking, as far as human exertion could ensure it, was all that
remained to us after its fatigues and its dangers had terminated, as the
reader will conclude from the tenour of the above passage; for, although
at the termination of the Murray, we came upon a country, the aspect of
which indicated more than usual richness and fertility, we were unable,
from exhausted strength, to examine it as we could have wished, and thus
the fruits of our labours appeared to have been taken from us, just as we
were about to gather them. But if, amidst difficulties and