RETURN TO REACH HOPELESS. 89 



silent echoes with the glorious name with which we 

 had dignified our new discovery, and which through- 

 out the world sounds as the appropriate title of the 

 fair sovereign of its mightiest people ? 



A rapid walk brought us to our old bivouac by 

 ten o'clock, without any thing of particular interest 

 having occurred upon the route. We found only 

 one boat at Reach Hopeless, Captain Wickham 

 having gone down the river with the others in 

 order to hasten the watering party. In another 

 chapter will be found some more detailed remarks 

 upon the peculiar and distinctive character of the 

 Victoria ; they will not be uninteresting to the reader 

 who feels any of that curiosity which is in part an 

 incitement to the discoverer. 



We learnt from the party at the boat that a large 

 body of the natives had been down watching their 

 movements, and apparently intending if possible to 

 surprise them. Though they had approached very 

 near, they would not have been seen but for a 

 shooting party, which got a view of them from an 

 overlooking height, crawling along the ground with 

 evident caution. They were probably the same 

 party we had encountered higher up, and had 

 traced our trail backwards, in order to see whence, 

 and in what force we had entered their territory. 

 Little did they imagine, as they gazed upon our 

 small party and its solitary boat, that they had seen 

 the harbingers of an approaching revolution in 

 the fortunes of their country ! 



