to the height of six or seven feet above the surface. The course and
distance by the river was estimated to be from twenty-seven to thirty
miles, on a north-west line.

"July 3rd. Towards the morning the storm abated, and at daylight we
proceeded on our voyage. The main bed of the river was much contracted,
but very deep, the waters spreading to a depth of a foot or eighteen
inches over the banks, but all running on the same point of bearing. We
met with considerable interruption from fallen timber, which in places
nearly choked up the channel. After going about twenty miles we lost the
land and trees: the channel of the river, which lay through reeds, and
was from one to three feet deep, ran northerly. This continued for three
or four miles further, when although there had been no previous change in
the breadth, depth, and rapidity of the stream for several miles, and I
was sanguine in my expectations of soon entering the long sought for
Australian sea, it all at once eluded our further search by spreading on
every point from northwest to northeast, amongst the ocean of reeds that
surrounded us still running with the same rapidity as before. There was
no channel whatever amongst these reeds, and the depth varied from five
to three feet. This astonishing change (for I cannot call it a
termination of the river), of course, left me no alternative but to
endeavour to return to some spot on which we could effect a landing
before dark. I estimated that on this day we had gone about twenty-four
miles, on nearly the same point of bearing as yesterday. To assert
positively that we were on the margin of the lake or sea into which this
great body of water is discharged might reasonably be deemed a conclusion
which has nothing but conjecture for its basis; but if an opinion may be
permitted to be hazarded from actual appearances, mine is decidedly in
favour of our being in the vicinity of an inland sea or lake, most
probably a shoal one, and gradually filling up by immense depositions