However his heart failed him when he saw Mr. Browne mount his horse to depart, and he expressed his readiness to accompany us to the hills, but no farther.  The Boocolo’s son had also volunteered to go so far with his friend the cook:  when therefore at 8 a.m.  I followed Mr. Browne with the remainder of the party, he and Toonda got on the drays.  We took a kind leave of the Boocolo, who put his two hands on my head, and said something which I did not understand.  It was however the expression of some kind wish at parting.  The cattle got on very well during the early part of the day, and at noon we halted for two hours.  After noon our progress was slow, and night closed in upon us, whilst we were yet some distance from the creek.  We reached the little sand hill near it, to which we were guided by a large fire Flood had kindled at midnight, for it appeared that the horses had given in, and that Mr. Browne had been obliged to halt there.  On leaving Cawndilla I sent Mr. Poole to Scrope’s Range, to verify his bearings, and to enable Mr. Stuart to sketch in the hills, but he had not at this time rejoined me.  At early dawn on the 29th, I accompanied Mr. Browne to the wells, leaving Mr. Piesse with the horse-cart and drays.  We arrived there at nine, and by twelve, the time when the oxen came up, had dug a large pit under a rock on the left bank of the creek, which filled rapidly with water.  The horses however were still in the rear, and I was ultimately obliged to send assistance to them.  At 1 p.m.  Mr. Poole and Mr. Stuart rejoined us.  Two of our kangaroo dogs had followed them from Cawndilla, but one only returned, the other fell exhausted on the plains.  Mr. Poole informed me that he had seen, but lost sight of Flood’s signal fire, and had therefore slept higher up on the creek.  The animals, but the cart horses in particular, were still very weak when we left Curnapaga, on the 30th, nor is it probable we should have got them to the long water-hole if we had not fortunately stumbled on another little pool of water in a lateral creek about half way.  After breakfasting here, we moved leisurely on, and reached our destination at half-past five, p.m.  Sullivan shot a beautiful and new hawk (Elanus SCRIPTUS, Gould), which does not appear to extend farther south than where we here met it, although it wanders over the whole of the north-west interior as far as we went.  There were some beautiful plants also growing in the bed of the creek; but we had previously met with so few things that we might here be said to have commenced our collection.

At this water-hole, “Parnari,” we surprised three natives who were strangers.  They did not betray any fear, but slept at the tents and left us the following day, as they said to bring more natives to visit us, but we never saw anything more of them.  They were hill natives, and shorter in stature than the river tribes.

The day succeeding that of our arrival at Parnari was very peculiar, the thermometer did not rise higher than 81 degrees, but the barometer fell to 28.730 degrees, and the atmosphere was so light that we could hardly breathe.  I had hoped that this would have been a prelude to rain, but it came not.