294 THEIR HABITS. [CH. VII. 



the party left Fort Bourke. From this smoke and other cir- 

 cumstances, it would appear, that some of the tribes, on the 

 Darling, are not migratory, but remain, in part at least, the 

 gins and children possibly, at some particular portion of the 

 river. This seems probable too, considering how much better 

 they must thus become acquainted with the haunts of the 

 fishes, which are here their chief food. The ground, we now 

 occupied, was, upon the whole, the best piece of country, in 

 point of soil, that I had seen upon the Darling. Dunlop's 

 range was just behind, an extremity of it extending to the 

 river, at three miles west from our camp. Three miles fur- 

 ther eastward, our old route was crossed by a hollow which 

 appeared to be the outlet of an extensive water-course, 

 coming from the south-east, along the base of Dunlop's 

 range, or the low country between it and D'Urban's group. 

 We had scarcely started this morning, when the dogs killed 

 another emu, and in the course of the day, we passed and 

 recognised the spot, where our first emu was killed. Thus 

 in one day, on our outward journey, we had traversed the 

 country in which all the emus we had ever killed on the 

 Darling, three in number, had been found. 



The hill which we crossed in our route, consisted of a 

 different sort of rock from any of those that we had seen 

 further down the Darling, being a splintery quartz, in which 

 the grains of sand or quartz are firmly embedded in the 

 siliceous cement. 



Aug. 7. — The morning was calm and sultry, but we con- 

 tinued the homeward route along our former ti'ack, and 

 over a fine, firm plain. As soon as we had crossed, what may 

 be termed Dunlop's creek (the dry hollow above-mentioned), 

 we started four kangaroos ; of which the dogs first killed 

 one, which we got, and afterwards another, in a scrub into 

 which they had pursued the rest. These two were the only 

 kangaroos that wo killed on this river ; and the circumstance 

 afforded anothci- j)roor of the superiority of the grass in the 

 adjacent country, ooiiijnired with tluit lower down. Neither 



