IN A LARGE LAKE. 159 
make sail, for which reason we entered the lake about 2 
p. m. The natives had kindled a large fire on a distant point 
between us and the further head-land, and to gain this point 
our efforts were now directed. The waves were, however, too 
strong, and we were obliged to make for the eastern shore, 
until such time as the weather should moderate. We pitch- 
ed our tents on alow track of land that stretched away seem- 
ingly for many miles directly behind us to the eastward. It 
was of the richest soil, being a black vegetable deposit, and 
although now high above the influence, the lake had, it was 
evident, once formed a part of its bed. The appearance of 
the country altogether encouraged M‘Leay and myself to 
walk out, in order to examine it from some hills a little to the 
S. E. of the camp. From them we observed that the flat ex- 
tended over about fifty miles, and was bounded by the eleva- 
tions that continued easterly from the left bank of the Mur- 
ray to the north, and by a line of rising-ground to the south. 
The whole was lightly wooded, and covered with grass. The 
season must have been unusually dry, judging from the gene- 
ral appearance of the vegetation, and from the circumstance 
of the lagoons in the interior being wholly exhausted. 
Thirty-three days had now passed over our heads since we 
left the dep6t upon the Morumbidgee, twenty-six of which 
had been passed upon the Murray. We had, at length, 
arrived at the grand reservoir of those waters whose course 
and fate had previously been involved in such obscurity. 
It remained for us to ascertain whether the extensive sheet 
of water upon whose bosom we had embarked, had any 
