CH. VI.] OLD CANOE — DRY STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 255 



of Europe.* I endeavoured to preserve some of its roots, by 

 taking them up in the soil, as the seed (a very small pea) was 

 not ripe. 



Finding that the minor river-course which had been, at 

 one time, within half a mile of the Darling, was again re- 

 ceding from that river, so that when I wished to encamp, I 

 saw no appearance of it within six miles ; and that no more 

 water could be seen in the dry channel, I crossed over and 

 made for the Darling in a west-south-west direction. Exactly 

 where the carts passed the dry channel, a native's fishing 

 canoe, complete, with the small oar or spear and two little 

 cords, lay in the dry and grassy bed of this quondam river ; 

 where now we were likely to pass the night without finding 

 water.f The intervening plain became very soft and dis- 

 tressing to the draught animals, and we were compelled to 

 encamp on the edge of a scrub which bounded it, and at a 

 distance of about four miles from the Darling. This was a 

 long way to send our cattle, but the observance of our usual 

 custom, seemed preferable upon the whole, even in this extreme 

 case, to passing the night without water. The sun was just 

 setting when oxen and horses were driven towards the west 

 in quest of the Darling, our only and never-failing resource 

 at that time. Magnetic var. 7° 8' 15'' E. 



July 2. — The men who returned with water for the camp, 

 last evening, had obtained it at a lagoon short of the river, and 

 where a large tribes of natives were seated by their fires. 

 Another party of our men had driven the cattle to the river 

 itself, for on its banks alone could any tolerable grass be 

 found. I was, therefore, apprehensive, that the natives would 

 molest the cattle, when so far from our camp, and I accord- 



* Trigonella suavissima, (Lindl. MSS.) ; caulibus prostratis, foliolis obcordatis 

 cum dente interjecto subdentatis subtus pilosiusculis, stipulis semisagittatis 

 aristato-dentatis trinerviis, umbellis paucifloris sessilibus, leguminibus falcatis 

 reticulatis glabris. 



t Large shells of the Unie genus projected from the hard and grassy surface, 

 which had evidently been in the state of mud for a sufficient time to admit of 

 their growth. 



