HISTORY OF FLOODS IN THE RIVER DARLING, ~ 167 
“There was a man with his family on the Bell River washed 
right off his house in this year. I remember well reading about 
it. The man was saved, with one son and daughter, who swam to 
a tree, but the mother and all the younger branches of the family 
were drowned. If my memory serves me right, there was a 
“After the flood in 1867 the Darling subsided very much, and in 
1868 it was very low. All the bars below Bourke were so dry that a 
uttaburra, an ana-branch of the Warrego, a thing I have not 
heard of having been done since. ; 
“About January, 1869, a few showers commenced, and in March 
id April, about Bourke, we had some fine rains, with a splendid 
_ Winter, the river being a ‘banker.’ In February, 1870, we had 
the commencement of the great wet season. 
. “Ttis asingular thing that I happened to be in Bourke the three 
great floods. More correctly speaking, I got there just as the 
1864 flood subsided. I know the mark well that used to be shown 
afterwards, both in Ross & Co.’s store and Sly’s public-house. 
“se * 
. .+Yrode in from West Bourke when the flood was at its eae 
In 1867. I was living only 60 miles away; and a great job 
ide j But i 
Weeks, when I thought it was time to get away. I believe that if 
- the Warrego had come down in 1870 equal to what it did in 1864, 
along with the other tributaries, the flood would have been as 
64. 
‘Steat as it was in 18 
“I remained in New South Wales, about Bourke, until August, 
1870. I then went to live at Charleville, in Queens After 
such a wet winter, imagine my astonishment when I got 
| to Cunnamulla, just a little way up the Warregp, to find gta 
» there having been no rain since February. In ‘ 
ney es (1870) it set in very wet, and continued so until the 
cember. 
“After I got to Burenda, 60 miles above Charleville, about the 
nd of 1870, it, rained constantly from September to December, 
