20TH DECEMBER.--This day I gave the cattle a rest, as the grass seemed
good, while I rode to look at my old line of marked trees. A cattle
station (of Mr. Kite) was within a mile and a half of our camp, and at
about three miles below it, I fell in with the former line. Where it
crossed the Goobang, a track still continued by them, but finally
diverged, leaving the line of marked trees, without the slightest trace
of the wheels or hoofs that had formerly passed by it. Reaching a hill
laid down on my former survey, and from which I recognised Mount Laidley,
I returned directly to the camp. We had encamped near those very springs
mentioned as seen on my former journey, but instead of being limpid and
surrounded by verdant grass, as they had been then, they were now trodden
by cattle into muddy holes, where the poor natives had been endeavouring
to protect a small portion from the cattle's feet, and keep it pure, by
laying over it trees they had cut down for the purpose. The change
produced in the aspect of this formerly happy secluded valley, by the
intrusion of cattle and the white man, was by no means favourable, and I
could easily conceive how I, had I been an aboriginal native, should have
felt and regretted that change. The springs which issue from the level
plains of clay, while the bed of the water-course some twenty feet lower
continues dry and dusty, are numerous. One had a strong taste of sulphur,
and might probably be as salubrious as other springs more celebrated.
They show that, in this country at least, the water-courses are not
supplied by springs, but depend wholly on heavy torrents of rain
descending from the mountains. Some holes in the bed of the Goobang Creek
did however retain some water which had fallen during the last rain. The
thermometer stood at 107° in the tent.

21ST DECEMBER.--Guided by my old friend Bultje, we pursued a straight
line of route through the forest to Currandong, which was half way to the
Bogan. We passed over a very open, gently undulating country, just