ascent of the right bank, some of the men were directed to cut steps up it.  I was amused to see the natives voluntarily assist them; and was surprised when they took up bags of flour weighing 100 pounds each, and carried them across the river.  We were not long in getting the whole of the stores over.  The boat was then hoisted on the shoulders of the strongest, and deposited on the top of the opposite bank; and ropes being afterwards attached to the carriage, it was soon drawn up to a place of safety.  The natives worked as hard as our own people, and that, too, with a cheerfulness for which I was altogether unprepared, and which is certainly foreign to their natural habits.  We pitched our tents as soon as we had effected the passage of the river; after which, the men went to bathe, and blacks and whites were mingled promiscuously in the stream.  I did not observe that the former differed in any respect from the natives who frequent the located districts.  They were generally clean limbed and stout, and some of the young men had pleasing intelligent countenances.  They lacerate their bodies, inflicting deep wounds to raise the flesh, and extract the front teeth like the Bathurst tribes; and their weapons are precisely the same.  They are certainly a merry people, and sit up laughing and talking more than half the night.

Barometer broken.

During the removal of the stores my barometer was unfortunately broken, and I had often, in the subsequent stages of the journey, occasion to regret the accident.  I apprehend that the corks in the instrument, placed to steady the tube, are too distant from each other in most cases; and indeed I fear that barometers as at present constructed, will seldom be carried with safety in overland expeditions.

Deserted by the natives.

Nine only of the natives accompanied us on the morning succeeding the day in which we crossed the river.  Botheri was, however, at the head of them; and, as we journeyed along, he informed me that he had been promised a wife on his return from acting as our guide, by the chief of the last tribe.  The excessive heat of the weather obliged us to shorten our journey, and we encamped about noon in some scrub after having traversed a level country for about eleven miles.

Several considerable plains were noticed to our right, stretching east and west, which were generally rich in point of soil; but we passed through much brushy land during the day.  It was lamentable to see the state of vegetation upon the plains from want of moisture.  Although the country had assumed a level character, and was more open than on the higher branches of the Macquarie, the small freestone elevations, backing the alluvial tracts near the river, still continued upon our right, though much diminished in height, and at a great distance from the banks.  They seemed to be covered with cypresses and beef-wood, but dwarf-box and the acacia pendula prevailed along the plains; while flooded-gum alone occupied the lands in the immediate neighbourhood of the stream, which was evidently fast diminishing, both in volume and rapidity; its bed, however, still continuing to be a mixture of sand and clay.