Feb. 18th. The breezes that had so much assisted us from the lake upwards, had now lost their influence, or failed to reach to the distance we had gained.  Calms succeeded them, and obliged us to labour continually at the oars.  We lost ground fast, and it was astonishing to remark how soon the men’s spirits drooped again under their first efforts.  They fancied the boat pulled heavily and that her bottom was foul, but such was not the case.  The current was not so strong as when we passed down, since the river had evidently fallen more than a foot, and was so shallow in several places that we were obliged to haul the boat over them.  On these occasions we were necessarily obliged to get out of her into the water, and had afterwards to sit still and to allow the sun to dry our clothes upon us.  The unemployed consequently envied those at the oars, as they sat shivering in their dripping clothes.

I have omitted to mention one remarkable trait of the good disposition of all the men while on the coast.  Our sugar had held out to that point; but it appeared when we examined the stores that six pounds alone remained in the cask.  This the men positively refused to touch.  They said that, divided, it would benefit nobody; that they hoped M’Leay and I would use it, that it would last us for some time, and that they were better able to submit to privations than we were.  The feeling did them infinite credit, and the circumstance is not forgotten by me.  The little supply the kindness of our men left to us was, however, soon exhausted, and poor M’Leay preferred pure water to the bitter draught that remained.  I have been sometimes unable to refrain from smiling as I watched the distorted countenances of my humble companions while drinking their tea and eating their damper.

March 17th. We had been drawing nearer the Morumbidgee every day; and the following afternoon, to our great joy, we turned our boat into the gloomy and narrow channel of the tributary.  Our feelings were almost as strong when we re-entered it as they had been when we were launched from it into that river, on whose waters we had continued for upwards of fifty-five days; during which period, including the sweeps and bends it made, we could not have travelled less than 1,500 miles.

Our daily journeys were short, and the head we made against the stream but trifling.  The men lost the proper and muscular jerk with which they once made the waters foam and the oars bend.  Their whole bodies swung with an awkward and laboured motion.  Their arms appeared to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from mere exhaustion they frequently fell asleep during their painful and almost ceaseless exertions.  It grieved me to the heart to see them in such a state at the close of so perilous a service, and I began to reproach Robert Harris that he did not move down