The drays started early in the forenoon, but I remained until two, to take some lunars with Mr. Browne.  At that hour we rode along the dray tracks, and at six miles descended into the bed of the lake, and crossing a portion of it arrived at the camp at half-past five.  The floods were just crossing the dray tracks as we passed, and gradually advancing into the basin.  The ground was cracked and marked with narrow but deep fissures into which the waters fell as they rolled onwards, and it was really surprising to see the immense quantity these chasms required to fill them.

Having taken leave of the Darling, it may be as well that I should make a few general remarks upon it.  The reader will have observed from my description, that the scenery on the banks is picturesque and cheerful, that its trees though of smaller size than those on the Murray, are more graceful and have a denser foliage and more drooping habit, and that the flats contiguous to the stream are abundantly grassy.  I have described the river as I found it, but I would not have the reader suppose that it always presents the same luxuriant appearance, for not many months before this period my persevering friend Mr. Eyre, on a journey up its banks, could hardly find grass sufficient for his horses.  There was not a blade of vegetation on the flats, but little water in the river, and the whole scenery wore a most barren appearance.  Countries, however, the summer heat of which is so excessive, as in Australia, are always subject to such changes, nor is it any argument against their soil, that it should at one season of the year look bare and herbless.  That part of the Darling between Laidley’s Ponds and its junction with the Murray, a distance of about 100 miles in a direct line, had not been previously explored, nor had I time to lay it regularly down.  I should say from the appearance of its channel that it is seldom very deep, frequently dry at intervals, and that its floods are uncertain, sudden, and very temporary.  That they rise rapidly may be implied from the fact that in two days the floods we witnessed rose more than nine feet, and that they come from the higher branches of the river there can be no doubt, since the Darling has no tributary between Laidley’s Ponds and Fort Bourke.  I have no doubt but the whole line of the river will sooner or later be occupied, and that both its soil and climate will be found to suit the purpose both of the grazier and the agriculturist.  Be that as it may, I regretted abandoning it, for I felt assured that in doing so our difficulties and trials would commence.

Our camp at Cawndilla was on the right bank of the Williorara, about half a mile above where it enters the lake.  Without intending it, we dispossessed the natives of the ground which they had occupied before our arrival, but they were not offended.  Our tents stood on a sand bank close to the creek, and was shaded by gum-trees and banksias; behind us to the S.W. there were extensive open plains, and along the edge of the basin of Cawndilla, as well as to some distance in its bed, there was an abundance of feed for our cattle:  the locality would be of great value as a station if it were near the located districts of South Australia.