INTRODUCED FROM TRIBE TO TRIBE.
We had, as I have said, passed over this region, and were again hemmed in by those sandy and sterile tracts upon which the beasts of the field could obtain neither food nor water. We overtook the seven deputies some time after we started, but soon lost sight of them again, as they cut off the sweeps of the river, and shortened their journey as much as possible. At 2 p.m. we found them with a tribe of their countrymen, about eighty in number. We pulled in to the bank and remained with them for a short time, and I now determined to convince the blacks who had preceded us, that I had not been actuated by any other desire than that of showing to them that we were not to be intimidated by numbers, when I refused to make them any presents after their show of hostility. I now, therefore, gave them several implements, sundry pieces of iron hoop, and an ornamental badge of copper. When we left the tribe, we were regularly handed over to their care. The seven men who had introduced us, went back at the same time that we continued our journey, and two more belonging to the new tribe, went on a-head to prepare the the neighbouring tribe to receive us; nor did we see anything more of them during the day.
We encamped on the left bank of the river, amidst a polygonum scrub, in which we found a number of the crested pigeon. It was late before the tents were pitched: as Fraser seldom assisted in that operation, but strolled out with his gun after he had kindled a fire, so on this occasion he wandered from the camp in search of novelty, and on his return, informed me that there was a considerable ridge to the south of a plain upon which he had been.
I had myself walked out to the S.E., and on ascending a few feet above the level of the camp, got into a scrub. I was walking quietly through it, when I heard a rustling noise, and looking in the direction whence it proceeded, I observed a small kangaroo approaching me. Having a stick in my hand, and being aware that I was in one of their paths, I stood still until the animal came close up to me, without apparently being aware of my presence. I then gave it a blow an the side of the head, and made it reel to one side, but the stick, being rotten, broke with the force of the blow, and thus disappointed me of a good meal.
During my absence from the camp, a flight of cockatoos, new to us, but similar to one that Mr. Hume shot on the Darling, passed over the tents, and I found M'Leay, with his usual anxiety, trying to get a shot at them. They had, he told me, descended to water, but they had chosen a spot so difficult of approach without discovery, that he had found it impossible to get within shot of them.
RIDGE TO THE SOUTH-EAST.
There was a considerable rapid just below our position, which I examined before dark. Not seeing any danger, I requested M'Leay to proceed down it in the boat as soon as he had breakfasted, and to wait for me at the bottom of it. As I wished to ascertain the nature and height of the elevations which Fraser had magnified into something grand, Fraser and I proceeded to the centre of a large plain, stretching from the left bank of the river to the southward. It was bounded to the S.E. by a low scrub; to the S. a thickly wooded ridge appeared to break the level of the country. It extended from east to west for four or five miles, and then gradually declined. At its termination, the country seemed to dip, and a dense fog, as from an extensive sheet of water, enveloped the landscape. The plain was crowded with cockatoos, that were making their morning's repast on the berries of the salsolae and rhagodia, with which it was covered.
DISTANT RANGES SEEN.
M'Leay had got safely down the rapid, so that as soon as I joined him, we proceeded on our journey. We fell in with the tribe we had already seen, but increased in numbers, and we had hardly left them, when we found another tribe most anxiously awaiting our arrival. We stayed with the last for some time, and exhausted our vocabulary, and exerted our ingenuity to gain some information from them. I directed Hopkinson to pile up some clay, to enquire if we were near any hills, when two or three of the blacks caught the meaning, and pointed to the N.W. Mulholland climbed up a tree in consequence of this, and reported to me that he saw lofty ranges in the direction to which the blacks pointed; that there were two apparently, the one stretching to the N.E., the other to the N.W. He stated their distance to be about forty miles, and added that he thought he could observe other ranges, through the gap, which, according to the alignment of two sticks, that I placed according to Mulholland's directions, bore S. 130 W.
We had landed upon the right bank of the river, and there was a large lagoon immediately behind us. The current in the river did not run so strong as it had been. Its banks were much lower, and were generally covered with reeds. The spaces subject to flood were broader than heretofore, and the country for more than twenty miles was extremely depressed. Our view from the highest ground near the camp was very confined, since we were apparently in a hollow, and were unable to obtain a second sight of the ranges we had noticed.