minor shrubs, got on a small plain, which I crossed N.E. and, to my
annoyance, found it covered with rhagodia and salsolae. As I had not
started with the intention of sleeping, I turned to the S.W. a little
before sunset, and reached the tents between ten and eleven. I found
Mr. Hume awaiting me. He informed me that at about nine miles from
where we had turned back with the party, he had struck upon a junction;
and that as the junction was much larger than the channel he had been
tracing, he thought it better to follow it up for a few miles. He found
that it narrowed in width, and that its banks became steep, with a fine
avenue of flooded-gum trees overhanging them. At four miles, he came upon
another junction, and at four miles more, found himself opposite to the
ground on which we had slept on the previous Saturday. From this point he
retraced the channel, but not finding any water for three miles below the
lower junction, he returned to the camp, with a view of prosecuting a
longer journey on the morrow. Mr. Hume had become impressed with an
opinion, that the junction up which we had slept was no other than the
Castlereagh itself; and that our position was on a creek, probably
Morrisset's chain of ponds, flowing into it. As the cattle wanted a few
days' rest, Mr. Hume and I determined to ride, unattended, along our track
to our camp of the 21st, and then to follow the channel upwards, until we
should arrive at the station of the natives, or until we should have
ridden to such a distance as would set our conjectures at rest. In the
morning, however, instead of running upon our old track, we followed that
of Mr. Hume to the junction, giving up our first intention, with a view to
ascertain if there existed any water which we could, by an effort, gain,
below where Mr. Hume had been. The channel was very broad, with a
considerable fall in its bed, and, in appearance, more resembled the slope
of a lawn than the bed of a river. It had two gum-trees in the centre of
its channel, in one of which the floods had left the trunk of a large
tree. We could discover where it narrowed and its banks rose, but, as we