On the 21st of November, 1831, Mitchell left Liverpool Plains and reached the Namoi on the 16th December.  He crossed it and penetrated some distance into a range which he named the Nundawar Range.  He then turned back to the Namoi, and set up some canvas boats which he had brought to assist him in following the river down.  The boats were of no use for the purpose, one of them getting snagged immediately, and it was clear that it would be easier to follow the river on land.  As the range was not easy of ascent, he worked his way round the end of it and came on to the lower course of Cunningham’s Gwydir, which he followed down for eighty miles.  At this point he turned north and suddenly came to the largest river he had yet seen.  Mitchell, ever on the alert to bestow native names on geographical features —­ a most praiseworthy trait in his character, and through the absence of which in most other explorers, Australian nomenclature lacks distinction and often euphony —­ enquired of the name from the natives, and found it to be called the Karaula.  Was this, or was this not the nebulous Kindur?  The answer could be supplied only by tracing its course; but its general direction and the discovery and recognition of its junction with the Gwydir showed that the Karaula was but the upper flow of Sturt’s Darling.  Much disappointed, for Mitchell was intent upon the discovery of a new river system having a northerly outflow, he prepared to make a bold push into the interior.  Before he started, Finch, his assistant-surveyor arrived hurriedly on the scene with a tale of death.  Finch had been bringing up supplies, and during his temporary absence his camp had been attacked by the natives, the cattle dispersed, the supplies carried off, and two of the teamsters murdered.  All ideas of further penetration into the new country had to be abandoned.  Mitchell was compelled to hasten back, bury the bodies of the victims, and after an ineffective quest for the murderers, return to the settled districts.

The journey, however, had not been without good results.  Knowledge of the Darling had been considerably extended, and it was now shown to be the stream receiving the outflow of the rivers whose higher courses Cunningham had discovered.  The beginning of the great river system of the Darling may be said to have been thus placed among proven data.  Mitchell himself afterwards showed himself an untiring and zealous worker in solving the identity of the many ramifications of this system.

7.3.  The passage of the Darling.

His next journey was undertaken to confirm the fact of the union of the Darling and the Murray.  Sturt himself was fully convinced that he had seen the junction of the two rivers when on his long boat voyage; but he had not converted every one, and Mitchell, with a large party was despatched to settle the question and make a systematic survey.  Early in March, 1833, the expedition left Parramatta to proceed by