CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
131 
grew in dark clusters at each turn ; the sloping banks were of a 
vivid green, the flats lightly timbered, and the aspect of the whole 
neighbourhood cheerful. 
“ I had hoped that we should have been able to approach the 
ranges pretty closely along the line of Laidley’s Ponds; but fancy 
our disappointment when we arrived on its banks to find that 
instead of a mountain stream it was a paltry creek, connecting a 
lake, now dry, with the river, and that its banks were quite bare. 
I was therefore obliged to fall back upon the Darling, and have 
been unable to stir for the last four days by reason of heavy 
rain. 
“ On Tuesday I despatched Mr. Poole to the ranges, which are 
forty miles distant from us, to ascertain if there is water or feed 
under them ; but I have no hope of good tidings, and believe I 
shall ultimately be obliged to establish myself on the Darling. 
i( You will be glad to hear, and so ought every body, that we 
have maintained a most satisfactory intercourse with the natives. 
The report we had heard referred to Major Mitchell’s affray with 
them, and you will not be surprised at their reverting to it, when 
I tell you that several old men immediately recognized me as 
having gone down the Murray in a boat, although they could 
have seen me for an hour or two only, and fifteen years have now 
elapsed since I went down the river. I suppose we misunder- 
stood the story ; but most assuredly I fully anticipated we 
should, sooner or later, come on some dreadful scene or other, 
and 1 came up fully prepared to act ; but the natives have been 
exceedingly quiet, nor have we seen a weapon in the hands of any 
of them : in truth I have been quite astonished at the change in 
the blacks ; for instead of collecting in a body, they have visited 
us with their wives and children, and have behaved in the most 
quiet manner. We may attribute this in part to our own treatment 
of the natives, and in part to Eyre’s influence over them, which 
is very extensive, and has been productive of great good. The 
account the natives give of the distant interior is very discourag- 
ing. It is nothing more however than what I expected. They 
say that beyond the hills it is all sand and rocks ; that there is 
