Mr. Larmer’s men were still seven miles behind him, and had had no water since they left the Macquarie two days previously, nor much to eat, for they had carried rations for seven days only, and this was the ninth since they quitted the camp.  We therefore sent back a man with a loaf and a kettle of water, and he met them four miles behind the party.  We continued the journey four miles beyond our old camp, to a pond which the overseer had found, and was then the nearest water to our former position.  To this pond the cattle came on tolerably well after having travelled fourteen miles, and having passed the previous night almost without water.  The party was at length reunited here; and we had now passed the so much-dreaded long dry part of the bed of the Bogan.  An old native and a boy, apparently belonging to the Myall tribes, came in the evening, but we could learn nothing from them.  They were covered with pieces of blanket, and the man used a Scotch bonnet as a bag.  They said they had been to Buckenba where there were five white men.

TRACES OF MR. CUNNINGHAM.

In the bed of the river where I went this evening to enjoy the sight of the famished cattle drinking, I came accidentally on an old footstep of Mr. Cunningham, in the clay, now baked hard by the sun.  Four months had elapsed since we had traced his steps, and up to this time the clay bore these last records of our late fellow-traveller!

September 4.

The old man with a hideous mumping face again came up, and took his place at one of our fires, having sent the boy on some message, probably to bring others of his tribe or tell them of our movements.  I asked him about Mr. Cunningham but could only obtain evasive answers, and I thought it best to order him peremptorily to quit our camp.  This I did in loud terms, firing a pistol at the same time over his head.  He walked off however with a firm step, and with an air which I thought rather dignified under the circumstances.  Early this morning I sent overseer Burnett on before us with three of the party to look for water, leaving the cattle and the men who came in yesterday to rest until 10 A.M.  Today and yesterday we once more beheld a sky variegated with good swelling clouds, and enjoyed a fresh breeze from the south-west.  The sight even of such a sky was now a novelty to us, and seemed as if we had at last got home.  We had in fact already ascended five hundred feet above the level of the plains of the interior, and were approaching the mountains.  At eleven we proceeded and struck into our old track where it touched on the Bogan, and we crossed its channel half a mile beyond where we had been encamped so long when looking for Mr. Cunningham.  On this day’s journey we again intersected his footsteps; and I could not avoid following them once more to the pond on the Bogan where he must have first drunk water after a thirst and hunger of four or five days!  There was water still there, though it had shrunk two yards from its