TRACES OF MANY NAKED FEET ALONG OUR OLD TRACK.

June 8.

As soon as daylight appeared this morning we commenced our long journey through the scrub; and we discovered to our surprise, by the traces of innumerable feet along our track, that the natives had not, as I till then supposed, come along the riverbank, but had actually followed us through that scrub.  They have nevertheless a great dislike to such parts, not only because they cannot find any game there, but because the prickly spinifex-looking grass is intolerable against their naked legs.  While we were encamped in the scrub on May 25 they must have also passed that stormy night there, without either fire or water.  On our way through it now we discovered a new hoary species of Trichinium, very different from Brown’s Tr. incanum.* The cattle, though they were jaded, accomplished the journey before sunset, and we halted beside the large lagoon adjacent to that part of the river which was within three miles of our former camp, being the spot where the natives, in following us from lake Benanee, first emerged from the woods.  The weather being still boisterous, we occupied a piece of low ground where we were sheltered from the west or stormy quarter by the river berg.

(Footnote.  Tr. lanatum, Lindley manuscripts; incano-tomentosum, caule corymboso, foliis obovatis cuneatisque, capitulis hemisphericis lanatis, bracteis dorso villosis.)

CAMP OF 400 NATIVES.

On the brow of this height and just behind our camp I counted the remains of one hundred and thirty-five fires at an old encampment of natives and, as one fire is seldom lighted for less than three persons, there must have been at least four hundred.  The bushes placed around each fire seemed to have been intended for that temporary kind of shelter required for only one night.

June 9.

We proceeded this morning as silently as possible, for we were now approaching the haunts of the enemy, and I wished to come upon them by surprise, thinking that I might thereby sooner ascertain whether any misfortune had befallen the depot.

NARROW ESCAPE FROM THE FLOODS OF THE RIVER.

Two creeks lay in our way and, from the flood then in the Murray, it was likely that they might be full of water, and the savages prepared to take advantage of the difficulty we should then experience in crossing them.  The first channel we arrived at, which was quite dry when we formerly crossed, was now brimful of the muddy water of the Murray and before we reached its banks we heard the voices of natives on our right.  We forded it however without annoyance, the water reaching only to the axles of the carts, but the current was very strong and FROM the river, that is to say, upwards.  We next reached our old camp where we had passed that anxious night near Benanee.  Here to my great satisfaction and indeed surprise, I found the bed of the larger creek, which occasioned us so great a detour when we first met the natives, still quite dry at our old crossing-place; being in the same state in which it was then, although the flood water was now fast approaching it.  We got over however with ease and at length again traversed the plain which skirts the lake; and we were glad to find that tranquillity prevailed along its extensive shores.