166 HISTORY OF FLOODS IN THE RIVER DARLING. 
up to look after. It is from this fact that I have such a know. © 
ledge of how the river was then. From the time that I went up — 
till about February, 1863, the river kept getting lower, until 
became perfectly dry, and as there used to be teams coming to me — 
for loading, I used to get all the news of the state of the riven | 
All the way to Bourke it was only a chain of water-holes. 
*«T remember Mr. Scott, of Parra, a station only 3 miles above 
where I was camped, saying to me, in his broad-Scotch, ‘Eh, 
mon, McIntosh, when I first came on the river I saw young gum — 
suckers growing in the bed of the river, but that is a long time — 
since, and I have seen nothing like what it is now since then.” 
“ As far as I can tell, Mr. Scott arrived on the Darling about 
the year 1839 or 1840. 
“In March, 1863, the Darling came down very heavy, owing to 
Queensland rains, and from that time until September, 1864, the 
river was nearly always a ‘banker.’ After this it commenced to 
subside. 
“In April, 1864, we had our last rains for that year, and from 
that out until January, 1866, not more than half an inch of raim 
fell on any part of the Darling from Bourke to Wentworth. I 
was travelling the river very often then. 3 
“During the winter of 1865 the river was extremely low, the 
billabongs being nearly dry. There were white frosts the whole 
of the winter, and the cold was so severe that it killed the fish M 
the river—at least, that was the prevalent idea. 
“ Although there had been no rain for such a long time, still 
to come to the front, which became very bare in places, es 
where the flood-waters had gone over. . 
* About November, 1865, the river was again very low, and 
Dunlop, 80 miles below Bourke, I could jump over it. At 
the Queensland rains sent it up, and then on the top 
came our own local rains. This was the time of such disaster 
the Macquarie River from the floods there. : 
“The flood in the Macquarie in 1867 was far more «sas 
pes the 1864 flood in that river, but was not so high by se 
in the Darling, as the other rivers did not come down wi 
