CH. IV.] AGAIN REACH THE GWYDIR. 87 



etiquette, which imperatively required that loud '' cooi/s,"* 

 should have announced his approach, before he came within 

 a mile of their fires. Dawkins had been cautioned as to the 

 necessity for using this method of salutation, but he was an 

 old tar, and Jack likes his own way of proceeding on shore ; 

 besides, in this case, Dawkins came unawares upon them, 

 according to his own account ; and it was only by subsequent 

 experience, that we learnt the danger of thus approaching 

 the aboriginal inhabitants. Some of this party carried 

 spears on their shoulders, or trailing in their hands, and the 

 natives are never more likely to use such weapons, than when 

 under the impulse of sudden terror. 



I continued my ride for six miles in a north-west direction, 

 without discovering any indication of either river ; on the 

 contrary, the country was chiefly open, being beautifully 

 variegated with clumps of picturesque trees. The weather 

 was verv hot, until a thunder-shower fell and cooled the air 

 in some degree. During the night the musquitoes were 

 very troublesome ; and the men rolled about in the grass 

 unable to find rest. 



Jan. 18. — At half-past six, we proceeded in a north-west 

 direction, until at seven miles a thick scrub of acacias, 

 oblisfed us to turn a little to the northward. When we had 

 advanced ten miles, a burnt forest, with numerous columns 

 of smoke arising from different parts of the country before 

 us, proved almost beyond doubt, that we were at length 

 approaching the river. Satisfied that the dense line of wood 

 whence these columns of smoke arose, was the river, I turned 

 westward, for the purpose, in the first place, of proceeding 

 along the skirts of it in the opener ground ; secondly, that 

 the natives, whose voices resounded within the woods, might 

 have time to see us ; and, thirdly, that we might make out 

 a day's journey before we approached the river bank. 



* The natives' mode of hailing each other, when at a distance in the woods. 

 It is so much more convenient than our own holla, or halloo, that it is univer- 

 sally adopted by the colonists of New South Wales. 



