Contraction of the channel.

I had remarked that the Morumbidgee was not, from the depot downwards, so broad or so fine a river as it certainly is at the foot of the mountain ranges, where it gains the level country.  The observations of the last two days had impressed upon my mind an idea that it was rapidly falling off, and I began to dread that it would finally terminate in one of those fatal marshes in which the Macquarie and the Lachlan exhaust themselves.  My hope of a more favourable issue was considerably damped by the general appearance of the surrounding country; and from the circumstance of our not having as yet passed a single tributary.  As we proceeded down the river, its channel gradually contracted, and immense trees that had been swept down it by floods, rendered the navigation dangerous and intricate.  Its waters became so turbid, that it was impossible to see objects in it, notwithstanding the utmost diligence on the part of the men.

About noon, we fell in with a large tribe of natives, but had great difficulty in bringing them to visit us.  If they had heard of white men, we were evidently the first they had ever seen.  They approached us in the most cautious manner, and were unable to subdue their fears as long as they remained with us.  Collectively, these people could not have amounted to less than one hundred and twenty in number.

Another accident.

As we pushed off from the bank, after having stayed with them about half an hour, the whaleboat struck with such violence on a sunken log, that she immediately leaked on her starboard side.  Fortunately she was going slowly at the time, or she would most probably have received some more serious injury.  One of the men was employed during the remainder of the afternoon in bailing her out, and we stopped sooner than we should otherwise have done, in order to ascertain the extent of damage, and to repair it.  The reeds terminated on both sides of the river some time before we pulled up, and the country round the camp was more elevated than usual, and bore the appearance of open forest pasture land, the timber upon it being a dwarf species of box, and the soil a light tenacious earth.

Aspect of the country and of the river.

About a mile below our encampment of the 12th, we at length came upon a considerable creek-junction from the S.E.  Below it, the river increased both in breadth and depth; banks were lofty and perpendicular, and even the lowest levels were but partially covered with reeds.  We met with fewer obstructions in consequence, and pursued our journey with restored confidence.  Towards evening a great change also took place in the aspect of the country, which no longer bore general marks of inundation.  The level of the interior was broken by a small hill to the right of the stream, but the view from its summit rather damped than encouraged my hopes of any improvement.  The country was covered with wood and brush, and the line of the horizon was unbroken by the least swell.  We were on an apparently boundless flat, without any fixed point on which to direct our movements, nor was there a single object for the eye to rest upon, beyond the dark and gloomy wood that surrounded us on every side.