(**Footnote. A distressing instance of this hostility towards the whites on the part of the aborigines has since occurred not far from the very spot where I wrote the above portion of my journal. Our line of route soon became the high road from Sydney to Port Phillip, and it appears by the Sydney newspapers (see Appendix 2.3) that the natives attacked a party of fifteen men proceeding with cattle into these recently explored regions. Although the whites had firearms the blacks killed seven of them, leaving another so severely wounded that his recovery was deemed hopeless. The winding swamp where this sudden attack by aboriginal natives took place is marked Swampy River on the map, and from the assembling of such a number at that point, exactly midway between the Murrumbidgee and Port Phillip, therefore the most remote from settled parts, and especially from the SUDDENNESS of that attack, the reader may imagine the perilous situation of my party on the Darling and the lower part of the Murray where, had any such attack but commenced successfully, it is extremely improbable that any white man would have returned to the settled districts.)
October 8.
The windings of the creek were this day more in our way as we proceeded along the valley and, when in doubt whether it would be best for our purpose to cross this channel or one joining it there from the south, I perceived a small hill at no great distance beyond, upon which I halted the party and ascended, when I saw that several ranges previously observed were at no great distance before us. In these ranges a gap to the south-east seemed to be the bed of the river which I knew we were approaching, and which I therefore concluded we should find in the low intervening country. Westward of the gap or ravine stood a large mass which I thought might be the Mount Disappointment of Mr. Hume.
ARRIVAL AT, AND PASSAGE OF, THE GOULBURN.
On returning to the party we crossed the channel of the Deegay; but at less than a mile further we were obliged to pass again to the right bank at a point where its course tended northward. Soon after recrossing it we met with a broad dry channel or lagoon, with lofty gum trees of the yarra species on its borders, a proof that the river was at hand; and on advancing three-quarters of a mile further we made the bank of the Goulburn or Hovell, a fine river somewhat larger than the Murrumbidgee.* Its banks and bed were firm; the breadth 60 yards; the mean depth as ascertained by soundings being somewhat more there than two fathoms. The velocity was at the rate of 100 yards in three minutes, or one mile and 240 yards per hour; the temperature of the water 54 degrees Fahrenheit. After having ascertained that this river was nowhere fordable at that time I sought an eligible place for swimming the cattle and horses across and immediately launched the boat. All the animals reached the opposite bank in safety; and by the evening every part of our equipment except the boat-carriage was also across.
(*Footnote. This river has been unfortunate in obtaining a variety of names and therefore less objection can be made to my preference of the aboriginal which I ascertained through Piper to be Bayunga. We already have a river Goulburn in New South Wales.)
FISH CAUGHT.
In this river we caught one or two very fine cod-perch, our old friends Gristes peelii.