instructions.

"I continued along the banks of the stream until the 8th of July, it
having taken during this period a westerly direction, and passed through
a perfectly level country, barren in the extreme, and being evidently at
periods entirely under water. To this point the river had been gradually
diminishing, and spreading its waters over stagnated lagoons and
morasses, without receiving any tributary stream that we knew of, during
the whole extent of its course. The banks were not more than three feet
high, and the marks of flood on the shrubs and bushes showed that at
times it rose between two and three feet higher, causing the whole
country to become a marsh, and altogether uninhabitable.

"Farther progress westward, had it been possible, was now useless, as
there was neither hill nor rising ground of any kind within the compass
of our view, which was bounded only by the horizon in every quarter, and
entirely devoid of timber, unless a few diminutive gum, trees on the very
edge of the stream might be so termed. The water in the bed of the
lagoon, as it might now be properly denominated, was stagnant, its
breadth about twenty feet, and the heads of grass growing in it showed it
to be about three feet deep.

"This unlooked for and truly singular termination of a river, which
we had anxiously hoped, and reasonably expected, would have led to a far
different conclusion, filled us with the most painful sensations. We were
full five hundred miles west of Sydney, and nearly in its latitude; and
it had taken us ten weeks of unremitted exertion to proceed so far. The
nearest part of the coast about Cape Bernoulli, had it been accessible,
was distant above one hundred and eighty miles. We had demonstrated
beyond a doubt, that no river could fall into the sea between Cape Otway