CONVERSING BY SIGNS. 
101 
at a loss to conceive what direction the river would ulti- 
mately take. We were considerably to the N. W. of the 
point at which we had entered it, and in referring to the 
chart, it appeared, that if the Darling had kept a S.W. 
course from where the last expedition left its banks, we 
ought ere this to have struck upon it, or have arrived at its 
junction with the stream on which we were journeying. 
The natives, in attempting to answer my interrogatories, 
only perplexed me more and more. They evidently 
wished to explain something, by placing a number of sticks 
across each other as a kind of diagram of the country. It 
was, however, impossible to arrive at their meaning. They 
undoubtedly pointed to the westward, or rather to the south 
of that point, as the future course of the river; but there 
was something more that they were anxious to explain, 
which I could not comprehend. The poor fellows seemed 
quite disappointed, and endeavoured to beat it into Fraser’s 
head with as little success. I then desired Macnamee to get 
up into a tree. From the upper branches of it he said he could 
see hills ; but his account of their appearance was such that 
I doubted his story : nevertheless it might have been correct. 
He certainly called our attention to a large fire, as if the 
country to the N. W. was in flames, so that it appeared we 
were approaching the haunts of the natives at last. 
It happened that Fraser and Harris were for guard, and 
they sat up laughing and talking with the natives long after 
we retired to rest. Fraser, to beguile the hours, proposed 
shaving his sable companions, and performed that opera- 
