A misfortune befel us this evening which made the party better aware of the treacherous nature of the banks of this part of the Murrumbidgee.  I had just time before it got dark to find a place where the cattle could approach the water, the banks being almost everywhere water-worn and perpendicular, and consequently inaccessible and dangerous to animals in descending to drink.  To this point I had sent the sheep, and the men were leading the horses also towards it when the foremost, which unfortunately was the best, made a rush to the water at a steeper place, and fell into the river.  He swam however to the other side but, in returning, sank in the middle of the stream, never to rise again.  He had winkers on and I think it probable that he had put his foot into a short rein which was attached to the collar.  This horse was of the Clydesdale breed and drew the cart containing my instruments throughout the journey along the Darling last year.  His name was Farmer—­an unfortunate appellation for surveying horses—­for Farmer’s Creek, in the new road to Bathurst, was named after another horse which fell there and broke his neck while I was marking out the line.

CROSS A COUNTRY SUBJECT TO INUNDATIONS.

The land adjacent to the river was of the richest quality; and the grass on it was luxuriant and the forest scenery fine.  The lofty trees certainly bore marks of inundation one or two feet high; but as land still higher was not far distant it cannot be doubted, notwithstanding its liability to become flooded, that the soil might supply the wants of an industrious population; especially as its spontaneous productions are the chief support of the aboriginal inhabitants.

TRAVERSE A BARREN REGION AT SOME DISTANCE FROM THE RIVER.

May 17.

A beautiful morning.  The latitude of this camp being exactly that of the most southern bend of the river in Arrowsmith’s map, I ventured upon a course nearly west in order to clear the bends.  The lofty trees I had seen before me were found to be situated, not on the banks of the river, but amongst scrubs.  We afterwards came to sandhills and extensive tracts covered with that most unpleasing of shrubs to a traveller, the Eucalyptus dumosa, and the prickly grass mentioned by Mr. Oxley.  We traversed ridges of sand rising perhaps sixty feet above the plains, nearer the river; and, when viewed from trees, the same kind of country seemed unlimited in all directions.  I therefore travelled south-south-west and afterwards southward; until we once more entered among the yarra trees on the more open ground by the river, and encamped after a journey of about twelve miles.  The country we had this day traversed was of so unpromising a description that it was a relief to get even amongst common scrubs, and escape from those of the Eucalyptus dumosa.  This species is not a tree but a lofty bush with a great number of stems, each two or three inches in diameter; and the bushes grow thickly together, having between them nothing but the prickly grass in large tufts.  This dwarf wood approached to the very river, where we encamped without leaving an intermediate plain, as on the Lachlan.  In this country, however dreary it appeared, we found a beautiful grevillea not previously seen by us.