The ducks and swans, seen in such myriads on the lake, seldom appeared on the river, in the first stages of our journey homewards.  About the time of which I am writing, however, a few swans occasionally flew over our heads at night, and their silvery note was musically sweet.

From the 10th to the 15th, nothing of moment occurred:  we pulled regularly from day-light to dark, not less to avoid the natives than to shorten our journey.  Yet, notwithstanding that we moved at an hour when the natives seldom stir, we were rarely without a party of them, who followed us in spite of our efforts to tire them out.

Molested by natives.

On the 15th, we had about 150 at our camp.  Many of them were extremely noisy, and the whole of them very restless.  They lay down close to the tents, or around our fire.  I entertained some suspicion of them, and when they were apparently asleep, I watched them narrowly.  Macnamee was walking up and down with his firelock, and every time he turned his back, one of the natives rose gently up and poised his spear at him, and as soon as he thought Macnamee was about to turn, he dropped as quietly into his place.  When I say the native got up, I do not mean that he stood up, but that he raised himself sufficiently for the purpose he had in view.  His spear would not, therefore, have gone with much force, but I determined it should not quit his hand, for had I observed any actual attempt to throw it, I should unquestionably have shot him dead upon the spot.  The whole of the natives were awake, and it surprised me they did not attempt to plunder us.  They rose with the earliest dawn, and crowded round the tents without any hesitation.  We, consequently, thought it prudent to start as soon as we had breakfasted.

Fraser in danger.

We had all of us got into the boat, when Fraser remembered he had left his powder-horn on shore.  In getting out to fetch it, he had to push through the natives.  On his return, when his back was towards them, several natives lifted their spears together, and I was so apprehensive they would have transfixed him, that I called out before I seized my gun; on which they lowered their weapons and ran away.  The disposition to commit personal violence was evident from these repeated acts of treachery; and we should doubtless have suffered from it on some occasion or other, had we not been constantly on the alert.

We had been drawing nearer the Morumbidgee every day.  This was the last tribe we saw on the Murray; and the following afternoon, to our great joy, we quitted it and turned our boat into the gloomy and narrow channel of its tributary.  Our feelings were almost as strong when we re-entered it, as they had been when we were launched from it into that river, on whose waters we had continued for upwards of fifty-five days; during which period, including the sweeps and bends it made, we could not have travelled less than 1500 miles.