Several trees around had been sawn and on two, about thirty yards west from the burnt stump, were the letters WW and IW 1817.  The tree bearing the last letters was a goborro or dwarf box, and had been killed two years before by the natives stripping off a sheet of bark; but from the growth of the solid wood around the carved part it appeared that this tree had increased in diameter about an inch and a half in seventeen years; the whole diameter, including the bark, being sixteen inches.  We immediately dug around the burnt stump in search of the bottle deposited there by Mr. Oxley, but without success.  The gins said that he rode forward some way beyond, and marked another tree at the furthest place he reached.  I accordingly went there with them, and they showed me a tree marked on each side but, the cuttings being in the bark only, they were almost grown out.  It stood beside a small branch or outlet of the river, which led into a hollow of polygonum.  The natives also said that one of Mr. Oxley’s men was nearly drowned in trying to cross this but that they got him out.  They positively assured me that this was the farthest point Mr. Oxley reached; and it seemed the more probable as during a flood the deep and narrow gully extending between the river and the field of polygonum must have then been under water, and a most discouraging impediment to the traveller.  I place this spot in latitude 33 degrees 45 minutes 10 seconds South; longitude 144 degrees 56 minutes East.  The natives further informed me that three white men on horseback who had canoes (boats) on the Murrumbidgee had visited this part of the Lachlan since, and that after crossing it and going a little way beyond, they had returned.

A TRIBE OF NATIVES COME TO US.

In the evening, while a heavy shower fell, the natives who had come with me gave the alarm that a powerful tribe was advancing with scouts ahead, as when they mean mischief.  We were immediately under arms and soon saw a small tribe consisting chiefly of old men, women, and children, approaching our party.  They sat down very quietly near us, lighting their fire and making huts without saying a word; and on Piper going to them we soon came to a good understanding.

MR. OXLEY’S BOTTLE.

From them we learnt that, after the tree at Oxley’s camp had been burnt down, a bottle had been found by a child who broke it, and that it contained a letter.  This information saved us all further search, although it had been my intention to halt next day and send back six men to dig for the bottle; I had purposed also to have promised a full one in exchange for it, if they had found it.

May 6.

The chief of the new tribe had ordered a man to accompany us as guide, but after going a mile or two he fell back and left us; and we were thus compelled again to depend on the information of the gin for the situation of water.  I regretted exceedingly the defection of this envoy, by whose means I hoped to have been passed from tribe to tribe.