and privations.  I desired the man to recall Mr. M’Leay; and, after gaining the wood, moved outside of it at right angles to my former course, and reached the river, after a day of severe toil and exposure, at half-past five.  The country, indeed, bore every resemblance to that around the marshes of the Macquarie, but I was too weary to make any further effort:  indeed it was too late for me undertake anything until the morning.

Anxious COGITATIONS; survey of river and environs.

The circumstances in which we were so unexpectedly placed, occupied my mind so fully that I could not sleep; and I awaited the return of light with the utmost anxiety.  If we were indeed on the outskirts of marshes similar to those I had on a former occasion found so much difficulty in examining, I foresaw that in endeavouring to move round then I should recede from water, and place the expedition in jeopardy, probably, without gaining any determinate point, as it would be necessary for me to advance slowly and with caution.  Our provisions, however, being calculated to last only to a certain period, I was equally reluctant to delay our operations.  My course was, therefore, to be regulated by the appearance of the country and of the river, which I purposed examining with the earliest dawn.  If the latter should be found to run into a region of reeds, a boat would be necessary to enable me to ascertain its direction; but, if ultimately it should be discovered to exhaust itself, we should have to strike into the interior on a N.W. course, in search of the Darling.  I could not think of putting the whale-boat together in our then state of uncertainty, and it struck me that a smaller one could sooner he prepared for the purposes for which I should require it.  These considerations, together with the view I had taken of the measures I might at last be forced into, determined me, on rising, to order Clayton to fell a suitable tree, and to prepare a saw-pit.  The labour was of no consideration, and even if eventually the boat should not be wanted, no injury would arise, and it was better to take time by the forelock.  Having marked a tree preparatory to leaving the camp, M’Leay and I started at an early hour on an excursion of deeper interest than any we had as yet undertaken; to examine the reeds, not only for the purpose of ascertaining their extent, if possible, but also to guide us in our future measures.  We rode for some miles along the river side, but observed in it no signs, either of increase or of exhaustion.  Its waters, though turbid, were deep, and its current still rapid.  Its banks, too, were lofty, and showed no evidence of decreasing in height, so as to occasion an overflow of them, as had been the case with the Macquarie.  We got among vast bodies of reeds, but the plains of the interior were visible beyond them.  We were evidently in a hollow, and the decline of country was plainly to the southward