Page:The Australian explorers.djvu/90

 searched the channels of the river for water in vain; and the native dog, so thin that it could hardly walk, seemed to implore some friendly hand to despatch it. How the natives subsisted it was difficult to say, but there was no doubt of the scarcity of food amongst them." Surely this was no place to loiter in after the work was fairly accomplished. Contenting themselves with the substantial discoveries already made, the explorers resolved to return to the haunts of civilization. They soon found themselves in the lovely Wellington Valley, from which the expedition had been absent four months and a half. After another journey through the settled districts, each of the weary wanderers reached his home, no one having sustained any injury to life or limb during this long and hazardous enterprise.

II.

Captain Sturt enjoyed but a very limited repose after the fatigues of the Macquarie expedition. He had returned to Sydney about the beginning of May, 1829, and in September of the same year his undying enthusiasm was once more gratified with instructions from headquarters to get ready for a full exploration of the Murrumbidgee. The Macquarie and the Lachlan, terminating their respective courses in miserable swamps, or being believed to do so, had proved delusive guides to the interior of the continent. But the colonists were resolved to know the heart of Australia at all hazards. It was still believed that