"A reflection arose to my mind, on examining these decaying vestiges of a former expedition, whether I should be more fortunate than the leader of it, and how far I should be enabled to penetrate beyond the point which had conquered his perseverance. Only a week before I left Sydney I had followed Mr. Oxley to the tomb. A man of uncommon quickness and of great ability. The task of following up his discoveries was not less enviable than arduous; but, arrived at that point at which his journey may be said to have terminated and mine only to commence, I knew not how soon I should be obliged, like him, to retreat from the marshes and exhalations of so depressed a country. My eye turned instinctively to the north-west, and the view extended over an apparently endless forest. I could trace the river line of trees by their superior height, but saw no appearance of reeds save the few that grew on the banks of the stream." Satisfied, after consultation with his companion Hume, that there was no obstacle to their onward march, they left their position, intending, as Sturt says, "to close with the marshes." The night of the first day found them camped amongst the reeds, which they came upon sooner than they expected, and the next day they halted for the purpose of preparing the dispatches for the Governor. On the morning of the 26th, the journey was resumed, the two messengers leaving for Bathurst, the rest proceeding onward until checked by finding themselves in the great body of the marsh, which spread in boundless extent around them. "It was evidently," says the leader, "lower than the ground on which we stood; we had, therefore, a complete view of the whole expanse, and there was a dreariness and desolation pervading the scene which strengthened as we gazed upon it." Under the circumstances, an advance with the main body of the party was considered unwise, and it was determined to launch the boat, and try and follow the course of the river, whilst a simultaneous attempt was made to penetrate the reed bed to the north. Accordingly Sturt, with two men, started in the boat, and Hume and two more struck north. Sturt's boating expedition came very quickly to a close. In the afternoon of the day he started:-- " . . . the channel which had promised so well, without any change in its breadth or depth, ceased altogether, and while we were yet lost in astonishment at so abrupt a termination of it the boat grounded." All search was fruitless, and mysteriously and completely baffled as Oxley had been, so was his successor, and there was nothing for it but to return to camp. Hume had been more successful. He reported finding a serpentine sheet of water to the northward, which he did not doubt was the channel of the river. He had pushed on, but was checked by another of the seemingly inevitable marshes.