Subsequently however a gin who was a widow, with the little girl above-mentioned, whose age might be about four years, was persuaded by him to accompany us.

HORSE KILLED.

At this camp, just after I had inspected the horses and particularly noticed one as the second best draught animal we had, I was requested by the overseer to look at him again, both bones of his near thigh having been broken by an unlucky kick from a mare.  The horse had been with me on two former expeditions, and it was with great regret that I consented to his being shot.  We were enabled to regale the old native with his flesh, the men shrewdly giving him to understand through Piper that the horse was with us what the emu was with them, too good a thing to be eaten by young men.  He seemed to relish it much and next morning we left him roasting a large piece.

THE BALYAN ROOT.

The principal food of these inhabitants of the Kalare or Lachlan appeared to be balyan, the rhizoma, as already stated, of a monocotyledonous plant or bulrush growing amongst the reeds.  It contains so much gluten that one of our party, Charles Webb, made in a short time some excellent cakes of it; and they seemed to me lighter and sweeter than those prepared from common flour.

HOW GATHERED.

The natives gather the roots and carry them on their heads in great bundles within a piece of net.  The old man came thus loaded to the fire where the blind child was seated; and indeed this was obviously their chief food among the marshes.

May 3.

We proceeded nearly west according to the suggestion of our female guide.  We crossed, at a few miles from Combedyega, my track in the afternoon of April 23rd; and soon after we entered on plains similar to those which we had traversed that day: 

The morn was wasted in the pathless grass,
And long and lonesome was the wild to pass.

REACH THE UNITED CHANNEL OF THE LACHLAN.

We saw however the river-line of trees on our left, and late in the day we approached it.  Here I recognised the Lachlan again united in a single channel, which looked as capacious as it was above, the only difference being that the yarra trees seemed low and of stunted growth.  A singular appearance on the bushes which grew on the immediate bank attracted my attention.  A paper-like substance hung over them in the manner in which linen is sometimes thrown over a hedge; but on examination it appeared to be the dried scum of stagnant water.  This—­marks of water on the trees and the less water-worn character of the banks which were of even slope and grassy—­seemed to show that the current of the river during floods here loses its force, and that the water is consequently slower in subsiding than higher up the stream.

NO WATER.