92 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



numerous branches of the Wimmera Eiver, but the country gen- 

 erally was sound, fairly level and easy travelling. On the 23rd of 

 July the Major reached his farthest westing, having been attracted 

 thereto by the singularly abrupt and picturesque mountain which 

 he called Arapiles. From its summit he counted twenty- seven 

 circular lakes, which proved to be salt. He was greatly puzzled 

 by the disappearance of the Wimmera Eiver, which he had taken 

 for granted must fall into the sea somewhere between Cape North- 

 umberland and the mouth of the Murray, but the valley through 

 which it was expected to flow could not be discovered from any 

 hill-top. Many years later the discovery was made that this 

 mysterious river, with its great volume of swirling waters, never 

 attempted to reach the sea, but was swallowed up by some under- 

 ground channel that absorbed it after entering Lake Hindmarsh. 

 But baffled in his efforts to locate its course the Major abandoned 

 the pursuit, and turning towards the south-west made for the coast. 

 On the 31st of July he reached the banks of a fine river fully 120 feet 

 wide and some 12 feet deep. As its course was south-west, and it 

 seemed to offer every facility for navigation, he launched his boats 

 upon it, and christened it the Glenelg, after the Colonial Secretary 

 of the day. A single day's experience, however, of complicated 

 channels, accumulations of snags, dense overgrowth of bushes, and 

 an occasional rocky fall, convinced Mitchell that the progress would 

 be infinitely slower and more tedious than by land, even though 

 the drays sank up to the axles in the black rich loam. Accordingly, 

 leaving the river near the site of 'the present town of Harrow, he 

 continued a south-west course over the soft undulating country, 

 full of running creeks, until he struck the Glenelg again, near Caster- 

 ton, and after crossing and naming the Wannon Eiver on the llth 

 of August, followed the main stream down for a week over an open, 

 richly grassed country, where the travelling was luxuriously easy. 

 On the 18th of August Mitchell formed a camp on the river just below 

 the site of the town of Dartmoor, and embarked sixteen of his men 

 in the two boats with the intention of navigating the river to its 

 outlet. For the first ten miles or so the river flowed south, a broad 

 and placid stream, then it took a sharp bend to the west and so con- 

 tinued to its mouth. The scenery greatly charmed the explorers 



