SECOND GREAT MARSH. 
67 
able way into the reeds the evening before, in the hope that 
it would have led him to water. The circumstance of their 
being in such numbers led us to penetrate towards them, 
when we found a serpentine sheet of water of some length, 
over which they were playing. We had scarcely time to 
examine it before night closed in upon us, and it was after 
nine when we returned to the tents. 
From the general appearance of the country to the 
northward, and from the circumstance of our having got to 
the bottom of the great marsh, which but a few days 
before had threatened to be so formidable, I thought it 
probable that the reeds would not again prove so extensive 
as they had been, and I determined, if I could do so, to 
push through them in a westerly direction from our posi- 
tion. 
The pits yielded us so abundant a supply during the 
night, that in the morning we found it unnecessary to take 
the animals to water at the channel we had succeeded in 
finding the evening before ,• but pursuing a westerly course 
we passed it, and struck deep into the reeds. At mid-day 
we were hemmed in by them on every side, and had 
crossed over numerous channels, by means of which the 
waters of the marshes are equally and generally distributed 
over the space subject to their influence. Coining to a 
second sheet of water, narrower, but longer, as well as we 
could judge, than the first, we stopped to dine at it; 
and, while the men were resting themselves, Mr. Hume 
rode with me in a westerly direction, to ascertain what 
