August 9.
We continued our journey along the old track to our camp of the 8th of June where we once more rested for the night. This was a very convenient station, being nearly on the margin of the river, the bank of which, consisting of concretionary limestone, afforded easy access for the cattle to the water while surrounding hollows supplied them with plenty of grass. I was now enabled to reduce the cattle guard from four to two men, which was a great relief to them. The backward journey allowed me a little time to look about me, and the river scenery here was fine. Indeed the position of our camp was most romantic, being a little eminence in the midst of grassy hollows, and recesses of the deepest shade, covered by trees of wild character and luxuriant growth.
RETURN TO FORT BOURKE.
August 10.
The whole party was ready to start early this morning and we proceeded in good time, in hopes of reaching our old home at Fort Bourke. Our dogs caught two of the largest kind of kangaroo as we crossed the plains. The cattle, although now weak, seemed also eager to get back to their old pasture on which they had fed so long formerly. We accomplished by four P.M. the journey of fourteen miles. From Fort Bourke we had been absent two months and two days, having travelled during that time over 600 miles, even in DIRECT distance.
DESCRIPTION OF THAT POSITION.
On our return from the lower country this place looked better than ever in our eyes. The whole of the territory seen by us down the river did not present such another spot, either for security, extent of good grazing land, or convenient access to water. The fort was uninjured except that the blacks had been at infinite pains to cut out most of the large spike nails fastening the logs of which the block-house was constructed. We all felt comparatively at home here; and indeed we were really about halfway to our true home, for we had retraced about 300 miles and were not more than the same distance from Buree, which is only 170 miles from Sydney. The cattle had done so well that I resolved to give them two days' rest; and more could not be afforded them as the weather, though beautiful, might change, and we had some very soft ground still to go over. It was remarkable that the water of the river, which for the last three days' journey had been brackish, was here again, as formerly, as pure and sweet as any spring water. Fort Bourke consists of an elevated plateau overlooking a reach of the river a mile and a half in length, the hill being situated near a sharp turn at the lower end of the reach. At this turn a small dry watercourse, which surrounds Fort Bourke on all sides save that of the river, joins the Darling, and contains abundance of grass.
THE PLAINS.
The plateau consists of about 160 acres of rich loam, and was thinly wooded before it was entirely cleared by us in making our place of defence. There are upon it various burying-places of the natives, who always choose the highest parts of that low country for the purpose of interment, their object being probably the security of the graves from floods. The tribe frequenting that neighbourhood consists of a very few inoffensive individuals, less mischievous, as already observed, than any we had seen on the banks of the Darling.
SALTNESS OF THE DARLING. THE RIVER SUPPORTED BY SPRINGS.