Mr. Hume’s report.

Mr. Hume had returned before me to the camp, and had succeeded in finding a serpentine sheet of water, about twelve miles to the northward; which he did not doubt to be the channel of the river.  He had pushed on after this success, in the hope of gaining a further knowledge of the country; but another still more extensive marsh checked him, and obliged him to retrace his steps.  He was no less surprised at the account I gave of the termination of the river, than I was at its so speedily re-forming, and it was determined to lose no time in the further examination of so singular a region.

False channel; perplexities.

On the morning of the 28th therefore we broke up the camp, and proceeded to the northward, under Mr. Hume’s guidance, moving over ground wholly subject to flood, and extensively covered with reeds; the great body of the marsh lying upon our left.  After passing the angle of a wood, upon our right, from which Mount Foster was distant about fourteen miles, we got upon a small plain, on which there was a new species of tortuous box.  This plain was clear of reeds, and the soil upon it was very rich.  Crossing in a westerly direction we arrived at the channel found by Mr. Hume, who must naturally have concluded that it was a continuation of the river.  The boat was immediately prepared, and I went up it in order to ascertain the nature of its formation.  For two miles it preserved a pretty general width of from twenty to thirty yards; but at that distance began to narrow, and at length it became quite shallow and covered with weeds.  We were ultimately obliged to abandon the boat, and to walk along a native path.  The country to the westward was more open than I had expected.  About a quarter of a mile from where we had left the boat, the channel separated into two branches; to which I perceived it owed its formation, coming, as they evidently did, direct from the heart of the marsh.  The wood through which I had entered it on the first occasion bore south of me, to which one of the branches inclined; as the other did to the S.W.  An almost imperceptible rise of ground was before me, which, by giving an impetus to the waters of the marsh, accounted to me for the formation of the main channel.  It was too late, on my return to the camp, to prosecute any further examination of it downwards; but in the morning, Mr. Hume accompanied me in the boat, to ascertain to what point it led; and we found that at about a mile it began to diminish in breadth, until at length it was completely lost in a second expanse of reeds.  We passed a singular scaffolding erected by the natives, on the side of the channel, to take fish; and also found a weir at the termination of it for the like purpose so that it was evident the natives occasionally ventured into the marshes.