' Before us lay the trackless,
immeasurable desert in awful silence. At length, after consultation, we
determined to steer west and by north by compass, the make of the land
indicating the existence of a river. We continued to march all day
through a country untrodden before by an European foot. Save that a
melancholy crow now and then flew croaking overhead, or a kangaroo was
seen to bound at a distance, the picture of solitude was complete and
undisturbed. At four o'clock in the afternoon we halted near a small pond
of water, where we took up our residence for the night, lighted a fire,
and prepared to cook our supper-that was to broil over a couple of
ramrods a few slices of salt pork, and a crow which we had shot. At
daylight we renewed our peregrination, and in an hour after, we found
ourselves on the banks of a river nearly as broad as the Thames at
Putney, and apparently of great depth, the current running very slowly in
a northerly direction. Vast flocks of wild ducks were swimming in the
stream, but, after being once fired at, they grew so shy that we could
not get near them a second time.
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