going too far from the river, we again entered the open forest of yarra trees which marked so distinctly its immediate margin.  At 3 1/2 miles we passed a bend of the river, full of dead trees, the banks being quite perpendicular and loose.  After reaching another bend three miles further we noticed two lagoons, apparently the remains of an ancient channel of the river; and at ten miles we came upon a creek as capacious as the Lachlan and full of large ponds of water.  Mr. Stapylton examined this creek some way up and he found that it came from the north-east; and on arriving at a favourable place I crossed with the party and encamped, the day having been very rainy and cold.  We soon discovered that this channel was only a branch of one from the north and, the latter being very deep, I determined to halt next day, that its course might be explored while the men made a fit passage across it for the carts.

May 20.

This morning the weather appeared beautifully serene; and the barometer had risen higher than I had ever seen it on this side of the mountains.  Mr. Stapylton, who left the camp in the morning, returned about sunset after exploring the creek through a very tortuous course, more or less to the northward of west.  He had also ascertained that it supplied a small lake about eight miles to the westward of our camp, whence he had perceived its course bending again towards the river, of which he in fact considered it only a branch:  and I therefore concluded that the ponds of water so abundant in it were but the remains of a flood in the Murrumbidgee.

May 21.

A good passageway having been made, we crossed the watercourse and proceeded towards Lake Stapylton as I understood that there we might easily recross.  I was informed by Burnett that when the journey commenced this morning the gins in the bush had not responded to Piper’s call until after such a search as convinced him that both intended to leave the party.  He said that in such cases the law of the aborigines was that the two first attempts of a wife to leave her husband might be punished by a beating, but that for the third offence he might put her to death.  On the way we traversed the head of a creek somewhat similar to the last, at a place where it was nearly level with the plain although, just below, it contained a fine reach of water obviously supplied by the river.

SERIOUS ACCIDENT; A CARTWHEEL PASSES OVER THE WIDOW’S CHILD.

Here an unfortunate accident befel the little native child Ballandella who fell from a cart and, one of the wheels passing over, broke her thigh.  On riding up I found The Widow her mother in great distress, prostrate in the dust with her head under the limb of the unfortunate child.  I made the doctor set it immediately; but the femora having been broken very near the socket, it was found difficult to bandage the limb so as to keep the bone in its place.  Every care however was taken of the poor little infant that circumstances would allow; and she bore the pain with admirable patience though only four years old.  In her cries on first meeting with the accident she was heard to call for Majy, a curious instance of this child’s sense at so early an age.