EXAMINATION OF CREEKS NEAR THE CASTLEREAGH.

Pursuing our journey, we reached another creek, at about five miles,
similar to the last in appearance and size, and we crossed it repeatedly
during the afternoon. We had been induced to keep along a native path in
the hope that it would have led us to the river by a short cut; but it
eventually led us to this creek, and away from the Castlereagh; for,
notwithstanding that we subsequently changed our course to the S.W., we
failed, as we supposed, again to strike upon the latter, and were obliged
to stop for the night on the banks of what appeared to be a third large
dry creek, which we intersected nearly at right angles.

We travelled through a good deal of brush during the day, nor did the
country change from the miserable and barren character it had assumed for
the last thirty or forty miles. The Castlereagh had so frequently changed,
that both Mr. Hume and myself were puzzled as to the identity of the
creek upon which we had halted. We searched its bed in vain for water,
although it was most capacious. Under an impression that the river was
still to the south, and that we were at a point to which many watercourses
from the high lands tended, I crossed the creek early in the morning, and
held a S.W. course, over an open forest country. At about eight miles, we
came upon a large space over-run by the polygonum junceum, a certain
indication of flooded ground, and of our consequent proximity to some
stream. Accordingly, after pushing through it, we struck upon a small
creek with abundance of water in it. Whether this creek was the
Castlereagh, which it resembled much more than the one we had left in the
morning, was doubtful; but it was a great source of comfort to us to have
so unexpected a supply of water as that which was now at our disposal.
Whatever channel this was, whether a river or a creek, our tracing it down