to so many shifts for want of water. Towards evening, I stationed a man
with a gun a little way up the river, with orders to fire on the flood's
appearance, that I might have time to run to the part of the channel
nearest to our camp, and witness what I had so much wished to see, as
well from curiosity as urgent need. The shades of evening came, however,
but no flood, and the man on the look-out returned to the camp. Some
hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound like that of
a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks as of breaking
timber, drew our attention, and I hastened to the river bank. By very
slow degrees the sound grew louder, and at length, so audible as to draw
various persons besides from the camp to the river-side. Still no flood
appeared, although its approach was indicated by the occasional rending
of trees with a loud noise. Such a phenomenon in a most serene moonlight
night was quite new to us all. At length, the rushing sound of waters and
loud cracking of timber, announced that the flood was in the next bend.
It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract,
tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It
was preceded by a point of meandering water, picking its way, like a
thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed,
of what thus again became a flowing river. By my party, situated as we
were at that time, beating about the country, and impeded in our journey,
solely by the almost total absence of water--suffering excessively from
thirst and extreme heat,--I am convinced the scene never can be
forgotten. Here came at once abundance, the product of storms in the far
off mountains, that overlooked our homes. My first impulse was to have
welcomed this flood on our knees, for the scene was sublime in itself,
while the subject--an abundance of water sent to us in a desert--greatly
heightened the effect to our eyes. Suffice it to say, I had witnessed
nothing of such interest in all my Australian travels. Even the heavens
presented something new, at least uncommon, and therefore in harmony with