Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from scans of public domain works at The National Library of Australia.) [Illustration: CLEARING CLAIM. “The surface-soil is usually first skimmed off before digging is properly commenced.”] [Illustration: MARKING CLAIM. “In all directions men were engaged in marking out their claims, which were eight feet square.”] THE MURRAY RIVER: BEING A JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE OF THE “LADY AUGUSTA” STEAMER FROM THE GOOLWA, IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA, TO GANNEWARRA, ABOVE SWAN HILL, VICTORIA; A DISTANCE FROM THE SEA MOUTH OF 1400 MILES. BY ARTHUR KINLOCH, Esq., CLERK OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. LONDON: HOPE & CO., 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1856. TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR HENRY EDWARD FOX YOUNG, KNIGHT, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, WHO HAS KINDLY AUTHORISED MY PUBLICATION OF A JOURNAL OF THE EXPEDITION ON THE MURRAY, I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS SHORT NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGE OF THE FIRST STEAMER ON THE WATERS OF THAT NOBLE RIVER. ARTHUR KINLOCH. PREFACE. Lest this description of the River Murray should appear in some points to differ from the accounts of other travellers, it may be necessary to observe that the present little work is merely a _Journal_ or daily record of what the writer observed during his voyage up the River, which was at the time considerably flooded, though it had not then attained its highest elevation, which occurs about December. The English reader may also bear in mind that rivers in England are not the scale whereby to estimate the streams of other portions of the globe, or even of Europe, and that some of the larger rivers of that Continent are in like manner subject to the vicissitudes of dry seasons and partial floods. This occurs particularly in Spain and in the South of France, as, for example, in the Rhone, which is materially influenced by the seasons in its volume of water.