higher up than Balderudgery. Having directed the party to encamp here, I
pursued the road south-westward along the chain of ponds, anxious to
ascertain whether I could in that direction pass easily to the westward
of Hervey's Range, and so fall into my former line of route to the Bogan.
At about five miles I found an excellent opening through which the road
passed on ground almost level. Having ascended a small eminence on the
right, I fell in with some natives with spears, who seemed to recognise
me, by pointing to my old line of route, and saying, "Majy Majy" (Major
Mitchell). I little thought then that this was already an outlying
picquet of the Bogan Blacks, sent forward to observe my party. The day
was hot, therm. 97° in the shade. The chain of ponds, there called "the
Little River," contained water in abundance, and was said to flow into
the Macquarie, in which case the Bogan can have but few sources in
Hervey's Range.

The station beside which we had encamped, comprised a stock yard, and had
been formerly a cattle station belonging to Mr. Kite. It was now a sheep
station of Dr. Ramsay's, and there was another sheep station a mile and a
half from it, along the road I had examined. Thus the country suitable
for either kind of stock is taken up by the gradual encroachment of sheep
on cattle runs, not properly such. This easily takes place--as where
sheep feed, cattle will not remain, and sheep will fatten where cattle
would lose flesh. Fortunately, however, for the holders of the latter
description of stock, there are limits to this kind of encroachment. The
plains to the westward of these ranges afford the most nutritive
pasturage in the world for cattle, and they are too flat and subject to
inundations to be desirable for sheep. A zone of country of this
description lies on the interior side of the ranges, as far as I have
examined them. It is watered by the sources of the rivers Goulburn,
Ovens, Murray, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan, Bogan, Macquarie, Castlereagh,