The ground whereon we now travelled was hard and firm, so that we progressed rapidly, and at five miles descended into a bare flat of whitish clay, on which a few bushes of polygonum were alone growing under box-trees. At about two hundred yards we were stopped by a watercourse, into which the floods of the Darling were flowing with great velocity. It was about fifty yards broad, had low muddy banks, and was decidedly the poorest spot we had seen of the kind. This, Nadbuck informed me, was the Williorara or Laidley's Ponds, a piece of intelligence at which I was utterly confounded. I could not but reproach both him and Toonda for having so deceived me; but the latter said he had been away a long time and that there was plenty of grass when he left. Nadbuck, on the other hand, said he derived his information from others, and only told me what they told him. Be that as it may, it was impossible for me to remain in such a place, and I therefore turned back towards the Darling, and pitched my tents at its junction with the Williorara. For three or four days prior to our arrival at Laidley's Ponds, the upward course of the river had been somewhat to the west of north. The course of Laidley's Ponds was exceedingly tortuous, but almost due west. The natives explained to us that it served as a channel of communication between two lakes that were on either side of it, called Minandichi and Cawndilla. They stated that the former extended between the Darling and the ranges, but that Cawndilla was to the westward at the termination of Laidley's Ponds, by means of which it is filled with water every time the Darling rose; but they assured me that the waters had not yet reached the lake. It was nevertheless evident that we were in an angle, and our position was anything but a favourable one. From the point where we had now arrived the upward course of the Darling for 300 miles is to the N.E., that which I was anxious to take, was to the W.N.W. It was evident, therefore, that until every attempt to penetrate the interior in that direction had proved impracticable, I should not have been justified in pushing farther up the river. My hopes of finding the Williorara a mountain stream had been wholly disappointed, and the intelligence both Mr. Eyre and I had received of it from the Murray natives had turned out to be false, for instead of finding it a medium by which to gain the hills, I now ascertained that it had not a course of more than nine or ten miles, and that it stood directly in my way. We were as yet ignorant what the conduct of the natives towards us would be, having seen none or very few who could have taken part in the dispute between Sir Thomas Mitchell and the Williorara tribe in 1836. Expecting that they might be hostilely disposed towards us, I hesitated leaving the camp, lest any rupture should take place between my men and the natives during my absence; much less could I think of fortifying the party in a position