Satisfied, after consultation with his companion Hume, that there was no obstacle to their onward march, they left their position, intending, as Sturt says, "to close with the marshes."
The night of the first day found them camped amongst the reeds, which they came upon sooner than they expected, and the next day they halted for the purpose of preparing the dispatches for the Governor. On the morning of the 26th, the journey was resumed, the two messengers leaving for Bathurst, the rest proceeding onward until checked by finding themselves in the great body of the marsh, which spread in boundless extent around them.
"It was evidently," says the leader, "lower than the ground on which we stood; we had, therefore, a complete view of the whole expanse, and there was a dreariness and desolation pervading the scene which strengthened as we gazed upon it."
Under the circumstances, an advance with the main body of the party was considered unwise, and it was determined to launch the boat, and try and follow the course of the river, whilst a simultaneous attempt was made to penetrate the reed bed to the north. Accordingly Sturt, with two men, started in the boat, and Hume and two more struck north.
Sturt's boating expedition came very quickly to a close. In the afternoon of the day he started:—
" . . . the channel which had promised so well, without any change in its breadth or depth, ceased altogether, and while we were yet lost in astonishment at so abrupt a termination of it the boat grounded."
All search was fruitless, and mysteriously and completely baffled as Oxley had been, so was his successor, and there was nothing for it but to return to camp.
Hume had been more successful. He reported finding a serpentine sheet of water to the northward, which he did not doubt was the channel of the river. He had pushed on, but was checked by another of the seemingly inevitable marshes.
On the 28th the camp was shifted to this lagoon, and the boat was launched once more; without result. The new-found channel was soon lost in reeds and shallows. Forced to halt again, Hume went to the north-east to scout, and Sturt went north-west, each accompanied, as before, by two men. They left the camp on the last day of the year.
After sunset on the first day, Sturt struck a creek of considerable size leading northerly, having good water in its bed. The next day, after passing through alternate plain and brush for eighteen miles, a second creek was found, inferior to the first both in size and the quality of the water; it too ran northerly. Crossing this creek, after a short halt, they travelled through stony ridges and open forest, and at night camped on the edge of a waterless plain, after a hot and thirsty ride; here one of the men, noticing the flight of a pigeon, found a small puddle of rain water that just sufficed them. Next day, the country steadily improving in appearance, they made west by south for an isolated mountain with perpendicular sides, from the top of which Sturt trusted to see something hopeful ahead. He was disappointed, the country was monotonous and level, and no sign of a river could be seen. They camped that night at a small swamp, and next morning Sturt turned back, like Oxley, coming to the conclusion that:—