to persuade these free denizens of uncultivated earth to forsake it for
the tilled ground. They prefer the land unbroken and free from the
earliest curse pronounced against the first banished and first created
man. The only kindness we could do for them, would be to let them and
their wide range of territory alone; to act otherwise and profess good-
will is but hypocrisy. We cannot occupy the land without producing a
change, fully as great to the aborigines, as that which took place on
man's fall and expulsion from Eden. They have hitherto lived utterly
ignorant of the necessity for wearing fig leaves, or the utility of
ploughs; and in this blissful state of ignorance they would, no doubt,
prefer to remain. We bring upon them the punishments due to original sin,
even before they know the shame of nakedness. Such were the reflections
suggested to my mind by the young savage as he tripped on lightly before
me by the side of his two half-civilised brethren of our party, who,
muffled up in clothes, presented a contrast by no means in favour of our
pretensions to improve and benefit their race. Yet our faithful Yuranigh
was all that could be wished. He was assiduously making to the stranger
such explanations of our wants and purposes, as induced him to conduct us
in the direction these required. He led us, thus admonished, over those
parts of the country most favourable for the passage of wheels. The
rosewood acacia was abundant, but many parts were covered with most
luxuriant grass. We encamped on the edge of a salt-bush plain, where
there was a small pond of water left by the last rains on a clay surface.
There was certainly enough for ourselves and horses, but it appeared that
our guide had greatly underrated the capacity for water, of our hundred
bullocks. For these, however, there was superb grass to the westward, and
a little dew fell on it during the night. Thermometer at sunrise, 59°; at
noon, 102°; at 4 P. M., 104°; at 9, 77°;--with wet bulb, 65°.

20TH FEBRUARY.--From the necessity for obtaining water as soon as