On the 23rd we took up a W.N.W. course, and when we again touched on the creek it was dry.  This was at a distance of about five miles from where we had slept.  As the animals had not recovered from their late privations, I deemed it better to halt the party and to examine the creek for a few miles below us, that in case it should prove destitute of water, we might return to that we had left.  Mr. Hume accordingly rode down it for about three miles, without success; and on his rejoining the men, we returned with them to our last camp, or to within a short distance of it.  Wishing to examine the creek above our position, I requested Mr. Hume to take two men with him, and to trace it down in search of water, while I should proceed in the opposite direction.  I went from the camp at an early hour, and as I wandered along the creek, I passed a regular chain of ponds.  The country on both sides of the creek was evidently subject to flood, but more extensively to the south than to the north.  From the creek, I struck away to my left, and after penetrating through a belt of swamp-oak and minor shrubs, got on a small plain, which I crossed N.E. and, to my annoyance, found it covered with rhagodia and salsolae.  As I had not started with the intention of sleeping, I turned to the S.W. a little before sunset, and reached the tents between ten and eleven.  I found Mr. Hume awaiting me.  He informed me that at about nine miles from where we had turned back with the party, he had struck upon a junction; and that as the junction was much larger than the channel he had been tracing, he thought it better to follow it up for a few miles.  He found that it narrowed in width, and that its banks became steep, with a fine avenue of flooded-gum trees overhanging them.  At four miles, he came upon another junction, and at four miles more, found himself opposite to the ground on which we had slept on the previous Saturday.  From this point he retraced the channel, but not finding any water for three miles below the lower junction, he returned to the camp, with a view of prosecuting a longer journey on the morrow.  Mr. Hume had become impressed with an opinion, that the junction up which we had slept was no other than the Castlereagh itself; and that our position was on a creek, probably Morrisset’s chain of ponds, flowing into it.  As the cattle wanted a few days’ rest, Mr. Hume and I determined to ride, unattended, along our track to our camp of the 21st, and then to follow the channel upwards, until we should arrive at the station of the natives, or until we should have ridden to such a distance as would set our conjectures at rest.  In the morning, however, instead of running upon our old track, we followed that of Mr. Hume to the junction, giving up our first intention, with a view to ascertain if there existed any water which we could, by an effort, gain, below where Mr. Hume had been.  The channel was very broad, with a considerable fall in its bed, and, in appearance, more resembled the slope of a