This fine grazing country had been abandoned more than once from the
failure of the water, and yet these ponds seemed capable of holding an
almost inexhaustible supply. A single dam would have retained the water
for miles, the Bogan always flowing through clay in a bed of uniform
width and depth like a canal. No doubt a little art and labour would be
sufficient to render the land permanently habitable: but on an uncertain
tenure this remedy was not likely to be applied, and therefore the
sovereignty of art's dominion remained unasserted there. The incursions
of the savage, who is learning to "bide his time" on the Darling, are
greatly encouraged by the hardships of the colonists when water is
scarce; and I was shown where no less than 800 head of fat bullocks had
been run together by them when water was too abundant. Then horses cannot
travel, and cattle stick fast in the soft earth and are thus at the mercy
of the natives. The stone ovens, such as they prepare for cooking
kangaroos, had been used for the consumption of about twenty head of
cattle a day, by the wild tribes who had assembled from the Darling and
lower Bogan on that occasion. Thermometer in tent 109° at noon, wind
W.N.W.

23D DECEMBER.--We crossed the Bogan (flowing eastward) at Mr. Templar's
station at Ganànaguy, and the overseer most hospitably stood by the party
as it passed with a bucket of milk, of which he gave a drink to each of
the men. Bultje put us on the right road to the next nearest water-holes
(Mr. Gilmore's station), and having rendered me the service he promised,
I gave him the tomahawk, pipe, and two figs of tobacco promised him, and
also took a sketch of his singularly Socratic face. This native got a bad
name from various stockmen, as having been implicated in the murder of
Mr. Cunningham. Nothing could be more unfounded; and it must indeed
require in a man so situated the wisdom of a Socrates to maintain his
footing, or indeed his life, between the ignorant stockmen or shepherds