Intercourse with the natives; scantiness of the population.

On our return to the camp we found several natives with our people, and among them one of the tallest I had ever seen.  Their women were with them, and they appeared to have lost all apprehension of any danger occurring from us.  The animals were benefited greatly by this day of rest.  We left the plain, therefore, on the 13th with renewed spirits, and passed over a country very similar to that by which we had approached it, one well adapted for grazing, but intersected by numerous creeks, at two of which we found natives, some of whom joined our party.  Our old friend left us in quest of some blacks, who, as he informed Hopkinson, had seen the tracks of our horses on the Darling.  I was truly puzzled at such a statement, which was, however, further corroborated by the circumstance of one of the natives having a tire-nail affixed to a spear, which he said was picked up, by the man who gave it to him, on one of our encampments.  I could not think it likely that this story was true, and rather imagined they must have picked up the nail near the located districts, and I was anxious to have the point cleared up.  When we halted we had a large assemblage of natives with us, amounting in all to twenty-seven, but I awaited in vain the return of the old man.  The night passed away without our seeing him, nor did he again join us.

We started in the morning with our new acquaintances, and kept on a south-westerly course during the day, over an excellent grazing, and, in many places, an agricultural country, still intersected by creeks, that were too deep for the water to have dried in them.  The country more remote from the river, however, began to assume more and more the character and appearance of the northern interior.  I rode into several plains, the soil of which was either a red sandy loam, bare of vegetation, or a rotten and blistered earth, producing nothing but rhagodiae, salsolae, and misembrianthemum.

We fell in with another tribe of blacks during the journey, to whom we were literally consigned by those who had been previously with us, and who now turned back, while our new friends took the lead of the drays.  They were two fine young men, but had very ugly wives, and were for a long time extremely diffident.  I found that I could obtain but little information through my black boy,—­whether from his not understanding me, or because he was too cunning, is uncertain.  One of these young men, however, clearly stated that he had seen the tracks of bullocks and horses, a long time ago, to the N.N.W. in the direction of some detached hills, that were visible from 20 to 25 miles distant.  He remembered them, he said, as a boy, and added that the white men were without water.  It was, therefore, clear that he alluded to Mr. Oxley’s excursion, northerly from the Lachlan, and I had no doubt on my mind, that he had