During the nights passed at this camp the natives were on the alert, so that their various movements, cooeys, and calls kept the party in a state of watchfulness, aware, as experience had taught us, of their thieving propensities. Some rockets sent up about the time I was expected on the evening of our absence had however scared them a little; and it is probable that the man from Cudjallagong had given them new ideas about soldiers. Piper's watchword, also, when taking up his carabine, usually was "Bell gammon soldiers."* They left the neighbourhood of our camp on my return and we saw no more of the tribe which had followed me.
(*Footnote. Meaning Soldiers are no joke!)
CHAPTER 3.4.
The Murrumbidgee compared with other rivers.
Heaps of stones used in cooking.
High reeds on the riverbank.
Lake Weromba.
Native encampment.
Riverbanks of difficult access.
Best horse drowned.
Cross a country subject to inundations.
Traverse a barren region at some distance from the river.
Kangaroos there.
Another horse in the river.
Lagoons preferable to the river for watering cattle.
High wind, dangerous in a camp under trees.
Serious accident; a cartwheel passes over The Widow's child.
Graves of the natives.
Choose a position for the depot.
My horse killed by the kick of a mare.
Proceed to the Darling with a portion of the party.
Reach the Murray.
Its breadth at our camp.
Meet with a tribe.
Lake Benanee.
Discover the natives to be those last seen on the Darling.
Harassing night in their presence.
Piper alarmed.
Rockets fired to scare them away.
They again advance in the morning.
Men advance towards them holding up their firearms.
They retire, and we continue our journey.
Again followed by the natives.
Danger of the party.
Long march through a scrubby country.
Dismal prospect.
Night without water or grass.
Heavy rain.
Again make the Murray.
Strange natives visit the camp at dusk.
THE MURRUMBIDGEE COMPARED WITH OTHER RIVERS.
May 15.
The night had been stormy with rain so that I had not been able to ascertain the latitude of the point at which we had reached this important river. It was Sunday and, although the two men sent after Burnett's party had come in early enough, we remained in the same camp. I had already been struck with the remarkable dissimilarity between the Murrumbidgee and all the interior rivers previously seen by me, especially the Darling. The constant fulness of its stream, its water-worn and lightly-timbered banks, and the firm and accessible nature of its immediate margin, unbroken by gullies, were all characters quite the reverse of those which I had seen elsewhere. Whatever reeds or polygonum might be outside, a certain space along the river was almost everywhere clear, probably from its constant occupation by the natives.
HEAPS OF STONES USED IN COOKING.
One artificial feature not observed by me in other places distinguishes the localities principally frequented by the natives, and consists in the lofty mounds of burnt clay or ashes used by them in cooking. The common process of natives in dressing their provisions is to lay the food between layers of heated stones; but here, where there are no stones, the calcined clay seems to answer the same purpose, and becomes better or harder the more it is used. Hence the accumulation of heaps resembling small hills.* Some of them were so very ancient as to be surrounded by circles of lofty trees; others, long abandoned, were half worn away by the river which, in the course of ages, had so far changed its bed that the burnt ashes reached out to mid-channel; others, now very remote from the river, had large trees growing out of them.