The graves had no longer any resemblance to those on the Murrumbidgee and Murray, but were precisely similar to the places of interment we had seen on the Darling, being mounds surrounded by and covered with dead branches and pieces of wood.* On these lay the same singular casts of the head in white plaster which we had before seen only at Fort Bourke.** It is indeed curious to observe the different modes of burying adopted by the natives on different rivers.  For instance on the Bogan they bury in graves covered like our own and surrounded with curved walks and ornamented ground.*** On the Lachlan under lofty mounds of earth, seats being made around them.  On the Murrumbidgee and Murray the graves are covered with well thatched huts containing dried grass for bedding and enclosed by a parterre of a particular shape, like the inside of a whale-boat.**** On the Darling, as above stated, the graves are in mounds* covered with dead branches and limbs of trees, and are surrounded by a ditch, which here we found encircled by a fence of dead limbs and branches.

(Footnote.  See Plate 16 volume 1.)

(**Footnote.  See Volume 1.)

(***Footnote.  See Plate 20 volume 1.)

(****Footnote.  See above.)

REDUCED APPEARANCE OF THE DARLING.

As we proceeded the sandhills became more numerous and their surface softer; while the scrub was at length so close that it was difficult to follow any particular bearing in travelling through it.  Near the river the surface was broken up by beds of dry lagoons which evidently became branches of the main stream in times of flood; and the intervening ground was covered with Polygonum junceum.  At length I reached an angle of the river and encamped on a small flat beside a sandhill.  Here the Darling was only a chain of ponds and I walked across its channel dry-shod, the bed consisting of coarse sand and angular fragments of ferruginous sandstone.  The width and depth between the immediate banks were about the same as I had found them in the most narrow and shallow parts during my former journey.  While I stood on the adverse side or right bank of this hopeless river I began to think I had pursued its course far enough.  The identity was no longer a question.

DESERT CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.

The country on its banks in this part presented also the same unvaried desert features that it did in the districts examined by us during the preceding year.  The Murray, unlike the Darling, was a permanent river, and I thought it advisable to exhaust no more of my means in the survey of deserts but rather employ them and the time still at my disposal in exploring the sources of that river, according to my instructions and in hopes of discovering a better country.  My anxiety about the safety of the depot brought me more speedily to this determination.  During the wet and cold weather there might be less activity among the savage natives, but it was not probable