little information, as only a collective number of about 100 men, a few women and children, were seen, in small scattered parties; but, judging from the number of encampments seen, at least a thousand must visit the banks of the river; and it is probable that the whole of the inhabitants for at least 100 miles on each side are dependent on it for water during the dry season.  Neither sex wear any clothing.  Their weapons and utensils are similar to those used on the eastern coast; nor was there any characteristic by which they could be observed to differ from the aborigines of other portions of Australia.  Fish, rats, grass seeds, and a few roots, constitute their chief food.  On the upper part of the river they bury their dead, piling wood on the grave; near the junction of the Thompson they suspend the bodies in nets, and afterwards remove the bones; while on Cooper’s Creek the graves are mounds of earth three to four feet high, apparently without any excavation, and surmounted by a pile of dead wood.  In the last-named locality the number of burial mounds which had been constructed about two years ago greatly exceed the proportion of deaths which could have possibly occurred in any ordinary season of mortality, even assuming the densest population known in any other part of Australia; and it is not improbable that the seasons of drought which proved so destructive to the tree vegetation higher up the river may have been equally disastrous in its effects on the aboriginal inhabitants of this portion of the interior.

A.C.  Gregory.

Sydney, 27 August, 1858.