"20th January, 1844.
"The country beyond the Darling for the first few miles from the river exhibits the same features as on its southern bank, the soil blackish, soft, and yielding; the trees principally myall, and a species of myall, called by the squatters rosewood, interspersed with the small and gnarled forest oak. About ten miles from the river, and nearly parallel to it, is the Waramble, a sort of swamp, boggy, and difficult to cross after wet weather, directly after which water remains in the holes along its course. From thirty to forty miles beyond this is the Nareen Creek. Here, except in very dry seasons, water stands. This I know from the Nareen blacks coming into the Barwin only at those times when they are in much danger from the Barwin blacks, who are extremely hostile to them. I cannot tell where the Nareen joins the Barwin; as far as I am acquainted with it, it is nearly parallel to it, slightly converging to the river westward. Between the Waramble and Nareen there is no perceptible rising ground; from the harder nature of the soil, the plain becoming more open, and the timber straighter and larger. I have no doubt that there is a gradual ascent. The grass is extremely luxuriant, like all the unstocked portions of rich ground in this country, the long kangaroo grass rising to the saddle skirts. The brigalow, which I have never seen in any but high ground, is here too.
"I now come to the reports of the blacks, which are: That about three days' journey of theirs (ninety miles) beyond the Barwin is a lofty range of mountains (I have beard of these mountains also from a gentleman who got a distant view of them from a plain near the Nareen); that a river, called the Culgoa, runs at the foot of these mountains, which river, from the similarity of the name, I am inclined to think, is one which empties itself into the Barwin, about one hundred miles lower down than the junction of the Castlereagh. I have remarked that the word Culgoa in the Wilem dialect signifies 'waterfall,' which adds to the likelihood of its being a mountain stream; that after crossing the mountains, which occupies one day (thirty miles), and travelling for two days (sixty miles), still north-west, they reach a large river, broader and deeper than the Barwin, the waters of which river never fail. Their name for this river I cannot now recollect. The old black, who gave the clearest account of this river, and who was the only one I have seen who admitted having been actually at this river, distinctly described its course to be different from that of the Barwin, and, perhaps, north or south-west. Might not this river be a tributary to one of the large rivers which flow into the Gulph of Carpentaria? and if so, how well adapted for a line of road traversing its valley to the Gulph? I have often wished, while residing on the Barwin, to make up a party to explore the size and course of this river, but the dangerous character of the black tribes in its direction, with the late Iong-continued drought, were enough to prevent it."
(See page 156.--[Chapter VI.])