On our way to the river, we passed through some dense bushes of casuarinae and cypresses, to the outskirts of the plains through which the Morumbidgee winds.  We reached the camp two or three hours after sunset, and found it crowded with natives to the number of 60.  They were extremely quiet and inoffensive in their demeanour, and asked us to point out where they might sleep, before they ventured to kindle their fires.  One old man, we remarked, had a club foot, and another was blind, but, as far as we could judge from the glare of the fires, the generality of them were fine young men, and supported themselves in a very erect posture when standing or walking.  There were many children with the women, among whom colds seemed to prevail.  It blew heavily from the N.W. during the night, and a little rain fell in the early part of the morning.  Our route during the day, was over as melancholy a tract as ever was travelled.  The plains to the N. and N.W. bounded the horizon; not a tree of any kind was visible upon them.  It was equally open to the S., and it appeared as if the river was decoying us into a desert, there to leave us in difficulty and in distress.  The very mirage had the effect of boundlessness in it, by blending objects in one general hue; or, playing on the ground, it cheated us with an appearance of water, and on arriving at the spot, we found a continuation of the same scorching plain, over which we were moving, instead of the stream we had hoped for.

The cattle about this time began to suffer, and, anxious as I was to push on, I was obliged to shorten my journeys, according to circumstances.  Amidst the desolation around us, the river kept alive our hopes.  If it traversed deserts, it might reach fertile lands, and it was to the issue of the journey that we had to look for success.  It here, however, evidently overflowed its banks more extensively than heretofore, and broad belts of reeds were visible on either side of it, on which the animals exclusively subsisted.  Most of the natives had followed us, and their patience and abstinence surprised me exceedingly.  Some of them had been more than twenty-four hours without food, and yet seemed as little disposed to seek it as ever.  I really thought they expected me to supply their wants, but as I could not act so liberal a scale, George M’Leay undeceived them; after which they betook themselves to the river, and got a supply of muscles.  I rather think their going so frequently into the water engenders a catarrh, or renders them more liable to it than they otherwise would be.  In the afternoon the wind shifted to the S.W.  It blew a hurricane; and the temperature of the air was extremely low.  The natives felt the cold beyond belief and kindled large fires.  In the morning, when we moved away, the most of them started with fire-sticks to keep themselves warm; but they dropped off one by one, and at noon we found ourselves totally deserted.

Dreariness of the landscape.