To-morrow, therefore, I am resolved to set forward again up the stream, and take the earliest opportunity to cross it; when, should the inclination of its course be such as to give reason to believe it to be the Macquarie, we shall continue on the north bank the whole way to Bathurst:  but, on the contrary, should its course leave it no longer in doubt that it is the Lachlan again rising from the marshes under Mount Cunningham, we shall quit its banks, and, taking a north-easterly course, endeavour to fall in with the Macquarie, which having found, I shall pursue my first intention of keeping along its banks until we arrive at Bathurst.  The river has risen in the course of the night and morning about eighteen inches.  We killed this day a red kangaroo, and three emus.

July 21.—­The stream has risen nearly eighteen inches in the night.  It is extremely puzzling whence such a body of water can come thus suddenly.  There must have been a great deal of rain in the eastern mountains, and the accumulated waters can be only now bending their way to the lower grounds; should the winter have proved wet to the eastward, it will undoubtedly solve the problem.

At half past eight o’clock we proceeded up the river, which during our day’s journey trended nearly north.  Both banks appeared equally low:  that on which we were travelling extended to the base of Goulburn’s Range, and was wet and barren.  About two miles from our night’s encampment, we ascended a low stony hill, from which the country northerly was broken into detached hills; to the east was Goulburn’s Range, and to the north-west the country was low without any rising grounds as far as we could see.  The sameness which had so wearied us during the last month was somewhat relieved by the various rising hills and low ranges which were scattered over the otherwise level surface of the country.  A hill bearing N. 15 E. received the name of Mount Torrens; it stood quite detached.  Two of the men, who were about a mile ahead of the main party, fell in with a small native family, consisting of a man, two women and three children, the eldest about three years old.  The man was very stout and tall; he was armed with a jagged spear, and no friendly motions of the men (who were totally unarmed) could induce him to lay it aside, or suffer them to approach him:  during the short time they were with him, he kept the most watchful eye upon them; and when the men calling the dogs together were about to depart, he threw down with apparent fierceness the little bark guneah which had sheltered him and his family during the night, and made towards the river, calling loudly and repeatedly, as if to bring others to his assistance:  he was quite naked, except the netted band round the waist, in which were womerahs.  The women were covered with skins over their shoulders, and the two younger children were slung in them on their backs.

There was a very considerable fresh in the stream, and its windings to-day were singularly remarkable, insomuch that it was frequently taken for two different rivers; necks of land near a mile long, but not one hundred yards wide, being the only separation between several of the reaches.  At three o’clock we halted on its banks, having travelled eleven miles and a half.