As we turned the Great Bend of the Murray, and pursued an easterly course, we rode along the base of some low hills of tertiary fossil formation, the summits of which form the table land of the interior.  We were on an upper flat, and consequently considerably above the level of the water as it then was.  In riding along, Tenbury pointed out a line of rubbish and sticks, such as is left to mark the line of any inundation, and he told us, that, when he was a boy, he recollected the floods having risen so high in the valley as to wash the foot of these hills.  He stated, that there had been no previous warning; that the weather was beautifully fine, and that no rain had fallen; and he added that the natives were ignorant whence the water came, but that it came from a long way off.  According to Tenbury’s account, the river must have been fully five and twenty feet higher than it usually rises; and judging from his age, this occurrence might have taken place some twenty years before.  As we proceed up the Darling, we shall see a clue to this phenomenon.  But why, it may be asked, do not such floods more frequently occur?  Is it that the climate is drier than it once was, and that the rains are less frequent?  There are vestiges of floods over every part of the continent; but the decay of debris and other rubbish is so slow, that one cannot safely calculate how long it may have been deposited where they are so universally to be found.

After passing the Great Bend, as I have already stated, we turned to the eastward and overtook Mr. Poole at noon, not more than eight miles distant.  Some of the bullocks had strayed, and he had consequently been prevented from starting so early as he would otherwise have done.  The animals had, however, been recovered before we reached the party, and were yoked up; we pushed on therefore to a distance of nine miles, cutting across from angle to angle of the river, but ultimately turned into one of the flats and encamped for the night.  We passed during the day through some low bushes of cypresses and other stunted shrubs, but they were not so thick as to impede our heavy drays, by the weight of which every tree they came in contact with was brought to the ground.  A meridian altitude of Vega placed us in lat. 34 degrees 4 minutes 20 seconds S., by which it appeared that we had made four miles of southing, the Great Bend being in lat. 34 degrees.  Kenny and Tampawang had joined the party before we overtook it, and Flood arrived in the course of the afternoon.  The cattle had an abundance of feed round our tents, and near a lagoon at the upper end of the flat.  The thermometer stood at 40 degrees at 7 p.m., with the wind at west.