DREARINESS OF THE LANDSCAPE. 59 
broad belts of reeds were visible on either side of it, on 
which the animals exclusively subsisted. Most of the 
natives had followed us, and their patience and absti- 
nence surprised me exceedingly. Some of them, had 
been more than twenty-four hours without food, and yet 
seemed as little disposed to seek it as ever. I really thought 
they expected me to supply their wants, but as I could notact 
so liberal a scale, George M‘Leay undeceived them ; after 
which they betook themselves to the river, and got a supply 
of muscles. I rather think their going so frequently into 
the water engenders a catarrh, or renders them more liable 
to it than they otherwise would be. In the afternoon the 
wind shifted to the S.W. It blew a hurricane; and the 
temperature of the air was extremely low. The natives felt 
the cold beyond belief, and kindled large fires. In the 
morning, when we moved away, the most of them started 
with fire-sticks to keep themselves warm ; but they dropped 
off one by one, and at noon we found ourselves totally de- 
serted. 
It is impossible for me to describe the kind of country 
we were now traversing, or the dreariness of the view 
it presented. The plains were still open to the horizon, but 
here and there a stunted gum-tree, or a gloomy cypress, 
seemed placed by nature as mourners over the surrounding 
desolation. Neither beast nor bird inhabited these lonely 
and inhospitable regions, over which the silence of the 
grave seemed to reign. We had not, for days past, seen a 
blade of grass, so that the animals could not have been in 
