Interior of New Holland. 
185 
hope for the destiny of mortals from what we have known of 
them on earth, my young and amiable friend is now happy with 
his Saviour and his God. 
I haveobserved thatTenbury, the native constable of Moorundee, 
accompanied Mr. Eyre and myself when we left it. This fine 
and intelligent man amused us with sundry anecdotes, as we 
rode along, and told us that, when a boy, he remembered a flood 
in the Murray, the water of which reached up to and covered the 
higher levels on which we were journeying. He stated that no 
rain fell, and that the weather had been unusually fine. That 
the blacks did not know whence the waters came ; but that they 
same from a great distance. I was led to infer that this event, 
from the suddenness of it, was independent of the ordinary and 
yearly floods that take place in the Murray, and that it was the 
effect of distant and heavy rains. As regards the periodical rise 
and fall of the Murray, that is, I think, regulated by the melting 
of snows on the Australian Alps ; the river commencing to rise in 
July, and attaining its maximum height, about 16 feet above its 
ordinary level, in January. As it gradually rises, it fills the back 
lagoons and creeks, replenishing them with fish of every kind, 
and resuscitating myriads of cray-fish, that have lain dormant 
under the flats. The natives of the Murray look to this periodical 
overflow with as much anxiety as did ever the Egyptians to the 
overflow of the Nile ; to the first as to the last it is the bountiful 
provision of a bountiful Providence. 
We overtook Mr. Poole at noon of August the 26th, and on 
the 31st reached Lake Bonney, at which place we remained until 
the 3rd September, on which day we resumed our journey up the 
river; and on the 7th encamped at the junction of the Rufus, 
having that little channel upon our left, and Lake Victoria in our 
rear. It was here that the blacks received that punishment which 
their unprovoked aggression, in this instance, brought upon them, 
by the accidental combination of circumstances which brought 
the police, expressly ordered out for that purpose, to the scene of 
action, where Mr. Robinson’s party had had three days hard 
fighting. The natives suddenly found themselves between two 
fires, and being wholly routed, lost upwards of 40 men, whose 
