THE RIVER VERY DIFFICULT OF ACCESS.

The water was then just beginning to pour over its borders into the alluvial margins by which I had approached it; and on the opposite side the border consisted of a reedy swamp, evidently impassable and unfit for a landing-place.  In no direction could I find access for our carts to the running stream.  Deep and long winding reaches of still water shut me out, either from the high berg or bank at one part, or from the flowing stream at another.  Returning from the river in a different direction I found, in a situation where I had nearly gained as I imagined the high bank after riding a mile, that a deep reach still separated me from that high bank which I then saw was beyond it, so that in order to return to the carts I was obliged to retrace my steps for several miles.  Having got round at length I ascended the hill before mentioned for the purpose of taking some angles, and I found that it consisted of granite, the component parts being white quartz and felspar and black mica.  I named this remarkable feature, probably the lowest hill of granite on the Murray, Mount Ochtertyre.  I had sufficient daylight left to conduct the party over part of this hill to a portion of the riverbank accessible then to carts by fording only one lagoon.  The velocity of the Murray at the spot where we could thus approach its border exceeded that of any other river we had previously crossed, being at the rate of 2 1/2 miles per hour.

October 18.

At daylight this morning the boat was sent across with Burnett and Piper, who landed to examine the ground within the reeds on that bank; and they ascertained it was so intersected by various deep lagoons that we could no longer hope to pass that way.  I next went down the river in the boat and found at about a mile and a half below our camp a place where I thought we might effect a passage.  This point was under a steep bank of red earth on the opposite shore where the river seemed to be encroaching.

A CARRIAGE TRACK DISCOVERED.

We landed and endeavoured to ascertain by looking for cattle marks whether any stations were near; and having heard that the flocks of the settlers already extended to the Murray we proceeded northward, eager to discover the tracks of civilised men.  The wheels of a gig drawn by one horse and accompanied by others were traced by Piper, but the impressions were several months old.  We walked as far as a spacious plain at some distance from the river without seeing any more recent tracks; and we were at length convinced that no station extended then in the immediate neighbourhood.  The left bank between the spot where our camp then was and the crossing-place which I had selected was low though apparently firm; but on landing and returning along it I met with several narrow channels into which water was then flowing from the river and which afterwards cost us considerable trouble to cross with our carts.