9TH MARCH.--My native guides, tired of the delay, were anxious to return,
and as the assistance they could afford me was likely to be extremely
useful, and the arrival of the drays was most uncertain, I went forward
this morning with one of them, two men, and Youranigh, our interpreter,
all mounted. Amongst the trees, beyond the swamp, fine reaches of water
appeared in a river channel, apparently continuous to the northward, but
which, in the other direction, or towards the swamp, abruptly terminated
like a cul-de-sac. On my asking the natives where it went to, they
pointed to the various narrow water courses and the swamp as the final
depositories of the water. Admirable distribution of the contents of a
river in a country where water is so scarce, and the climate so hot and
dry! We proceeded along the margin of the "Narran," which led us nearly
due north, until we forded it, at the desire of our guides, on a good
gravelly bottom, the water reaching to our saddle-flaps. Crossing a
slight elevation where the soil was gravelly, and in which grew the
shrubs of the ordinary scrubs with several interesting novelties, we
again came upon an angle of the Narran, and continued along its banks for
about thirty miles, until near sunset, when we tethered our horses, and
lay down for the night. The Narran was full of water every where, and
with this abundance of water there was also plenty of most excellent
grass. The PANICUM LOEVINODE of Dr. Lindley seemed to predominate, a
grass whereof the seed ("Cooly") is made by the natives into a kind of
paste or bread. Dry heaps of this grass, that had been pulled expressly
for the purpose of gathering the seed, lay along our path for many miles.
I counted nine miles along the river, in which we rode through this grass
only, reaching to our saddle-girths, and the same grass seemed to grow
back from the river, at least as far as the eye could reach through a
very open forest. I had never seen such rich natural pasturage in any
other part of New South Wales. Still it was what supplied the bread of
the natives; and these children of the soil were doing every thing in