Although the winter at Bathurst, we learnt, had been cold and severe, there had not been much rain; little or none had fallen in the depot on the Lachlan, although the people there had observed some very high floods in the river; one particularly that would nearly correspond with the time when an unexpected fresh surprised us on our return down the Lachlan on the 11th of July. JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION IN AUSTRALIA PART II --qua nulla pedum vestigia ducunt, Nulla rotae currus testantur signa priores. GROTIUS. TO THE RIGHT HON. ROBERT PEEL, M. P. ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, etc. etc. etc. THIS JOURNAL IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY HIS VERY FAITHFUL AND OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. Sydney, New South Wales, July 21, 1819. PREFACE. The general appearance of the country of New South Wales and the magnitude of the Macquarie River, as seen on the return of the expedition in 1817, had caused the most sanguine expectation to be entertained, that either a communication with the ocean, or interior navigable waters, would be discovered by following its course. The important benefits that would result to the colony in the event of such an expectation being realized, determined his Excellency Governor Macquarie to lose no time in fitting out a second expedition, which should have the elucidation of this point for its principal object. This expedition was also entrusted to my direction. I had scarcely a doubt of ultimate success, and set out with a confidence which nothing short of ocular demonstration could destroy. The result of our voyage down the Macquarie River, and the conjectures which naturally arose in my mind founded upon observations of its apparent termination, together with our subsequent journey to the east coast, will be found in the following pages. In the map which accompanies the present Journal, every bounding range to the westward is laid down, from which it will appear that the north-west interior is nearly a perfect plain; the lower parts of which are certainly in most seasons under water. The highest land we crossed lies in lat. 31. S., and long. 151. 10. E. From this apparently dividing or principal range, the country gradually declines to the north-west; when, the hills terminating abruptly, the level land commences, over which is discharged all the waters that have their rise in this dividing range; and also those waters which rising in the hills (for they cannot with propriety be termed mountains) to the south-west, have the Lachlan River for their channel.