'256 DIFFERENT NAMES OF RIVERS. 



the station has received its name. The Tumat 

 may probably rise from a mass of mountains to 

 the southward, divided from " Monaro" or 

 " Menero" Plains, by a lofty ridge of moun- 

 tains. Neither the origin of this, or the Mur- 

 rumbidgee river, however, is ascertained. 



It was stated to me in this part of the colony, 

 that the natives call all large rivers Murrum- 

 bidgee,* and I certainly heard it applied by 

 them equally to the Tumat and Murrumbidgee 

 streams ; but I found they usually name the 

 river after the country through which it flows, 

 so that on demanding the name of the river at 

 different places, many names are bestowed upon 

 it : a person unaware of this circumstance is 

 surprised at the number of names the same 



* The following extract, from the introduction to " Tuckey's 

 Unfortunate Expedition to explore the River Congo," is 

 curious as coinciding, as regards another portion of the 

 globe, with the above remark. 



" He named it" (alluding to Diego Cam) " the Congo, as 

 that was the name of the country through which it flowed ; 

 but he afterwards found that the natives called it the Zaire, 

 two names which, since that time, have been used indiscri- 

 minately by Europeans. It now appears that Zaire is the 

 general appellative for any great river, like the Nile in North 

 Africa, and the Ganges in Hindoostan ; and that the native 

 name of the individual river in question is Moienzi enzaddi, 

 or the river which absorbs all other rivers." — Introduction, 

 page xi. 



