"Yesterday being the King's birthday, Mr. Cunningham planted under Mount Brogden acorns, peach and apricot stones, and quince seeds, with the hope, rather than the expectation, that they would grow and serve to commemorate the day and situation, should these desolate plains be ever again visited by civilised man, of which, however, I think there is very little probability.
"June 6. A mild pleasant morning: set forward on our journey to the westward and north-west, in hopes of finding a better country."
* * * * *
"June 8th. The whole country in these directions, as far as the eye could reach, was one continued thicket of eucalyptus scrub. It was physically impossible to proceed that way, and our situation was too critical to admit of delay; it was therefore resolved to return back to our last station on the 6th, under Peel's Range, if for no other purpose than that of giving the horses water. I felt that by attempting to proceed westerly I should endanger the safety of every man composing the expedition, without any practical good arising from such perseverance, It was therefore deemed more prudent to keep along the base of Peel's Range to its termination, having some chance of finding water in its rocky ravines, whilst there was none at all in attempting to keep the level country."
We have now seen how Oxley, prevented from following the river down by an overflow amongst the marshes, turned south-west, only to be driven back by impenetrable scrubs and general aridity. He struck north, with the hope of shortly regaining the too well watered country he had left. The fixed idea of the utterly useless nature of the country is ever present in his mind as he proceeds. On the 21st June he writes:—
"The farther we proceed north-westerly the more convinced I am hat for all the practical purposes of civilised man the interior of this country, westward of a certain meridian, is uninhabitable, deprived as it 5 of wood, water and grass."
A sweeping and hasty condemnation this, considering that he threshold of the interior had been scarcely more than crossed.
On the 23rd of June the travellers suddenly and unexpectedly came upon the river again, an incident, as the leader says, little expected by any one.
The next day they started once more to follow down the stream, with brighter hopes of better success, until, on the 7th of July, progress was once more arrested, and Oxley turned back recording in his journal:—
"It is with infinite regret and pain that I was forced to come to the conclusion that the interior of this vast country is a marsh, and uninhabitable."