216 
COMPLETE EXHAUSTION OF THE MEN. 
The river had fallen below its former level, and rocks and 
logs were now exposed above the water, over many of which 
the boat’s keel must have grazed, as we passed down with 
the current. I really shuddered frequently, at seeing these 
complicated dangers, and I was at a loss to conceive how 
we could have escaped them. The planks of our boat were 
so thin that if she had struck forcibly against any one 
branch of the hundreds she must have grazed, she would 
inevitably have been rent asunder from stem to stern. 
The day after we passed the depot, on our return, we 
began to experience the effects of the rains that had fallen 
in the mountains. The Morumbidgee rose upon us six feet 
in one night, and poured along its turbid waters with pro- 
portionate violence. For seventeen days we pulled against 
them with determined perseverance, but human efforts, 
under privations such as ours, tend to weaken themselves, 
and thus it was that the men began to exhibit the effects 
of severe and unremitting toil. Our daily journeys were 
short, and the head we made against the stream but trifling. 
The men lost the properand muscular jerk with which they 
once made the waters foam and the oars bend. Then- 
whole bodies swung with an awkward and laboured motion. 
Their arms appeared to be nerveless ; their faces became hag- 
gard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk ; na- 
ture was so completely overcome, that from mere exhaustion 
they frequently fell asleep during their painful and almost 
ceaseless exertions. It grieved me to the heart to see 
them in such a state at the close of so perilous a service. 
