330 DR. LEICHHARDT'S TRAVELS. 
passed his camp 79; examined the country along a small creek 
joining the river at that camp; returned on their tracks to the 
place where they had first met Sir Thomas Mitchell’s tracks, and 
followed them down to lat. 27° 30’, passing his camp 81. Between 
these two camps, which are very nearly forty miles distant from 
each other, they had to camp without water, and Mr. Kennedy 
appeared to have shared the same fate, for they found that he had 
tried to obtain it by digging in the sandy bed of the creek. After 
having seen sixty miles of Sir Thomas Mitchell’s track, and finding 
that the country did not agree with his description of Fitz Roy 
` Downs, Dr. Leichhardt concluded that he was on the Maranoa, 
and that the little river they had crossed was really the Colgoon. 
They now returned to the eastward, to make the Balonne; and 
trace that river up to the junction of Dogwood Creek and the 
Condamine of Allan Cunningham, and to ascertain where those 
various creeks and rivers they had previously crossed joined the main 
stream. After travelling for eighteen miles through a thick Brick- 
low scrub, with a few interruptions of open ground, they came to 
a chain of fine large ponds; and about three miles farther found 
the Balonne. All the hollows, flats, and gullies along the river 
had been covered with water, and the flood-marks were visible _ 
full five feet above the banks on the trees; its course Was 
from N.E. by N. to S.W. by S. They soon after passed the 
junction of a deep creek or gully, and camped in latitude 27° 24, ` 
in tolerably open country. About three miles to the northward 
they saw Sir Thomas Mitchell’s tracks leaving the river, but they 
were generally very faint. In lat. 27° 18’ a large creek joined 
the Balonne and it was supposed to be the Colgoon. The country 
below the junction of this creek is open, and by far the best they 
had seen along the right bank of the river. Above the Colgoon 
it is generally closely wooded, with some open patches; from the 
. junction of the Colgoon to the junction of Sandy Creek, the 
Balonne runs from E.N.E. to W.S.W., with wide bends to the 
southward ; their second camp from the Balonne was in lat. 27?1T. 
About twenty-four miles from the junction of the Colgoon, up the 
river, another large creek joins it; it comes from N. 35° E, and 
