CHAPTER III.

Intercourse with the natives--Their appearance and condition--Remarks on the Salt or Darling River--Appearance of the marshes on our return--Alarm for safety of the provision party--Return to Mount Harris--Miserable condition of the natives--Circumstances attending the slaughter of two Irish runaways--Bend our course towards the Castlereagh--Wallis's Ponds--Find the famished natives feeding on gum--Channel of the Castlereagh--Character of the country in its vicinity--Another tribe of natives--Amicable intercourse with them--Morrisset's chain of Ponds--Again reach the Darling River ninety miles higher up than where we first struck upon it.