now understood their meaning. They had pointed forward along the way we were pursuing, holding the hands as high as the breast, as if to show how deep; and then to the eastward, as if to say-that direction would be better. We were now forced to retrace our steps, and in following the direction indicated by the natives, we made a slight detour, thus avoiding the difficulty, and travelled over hard ground into our old track again. This useful information, given so kindly by these natives, convinced me that no treachery was intended; although among the men who had so recently buried their comrades, I believe a different opinion prevailed."

and we plainly understood the invitation of the men to visit these females. But the party was much more disposed to fight than to make love just then, and I have little doubt but that by throwing a single spear the natives would have pleased them more than by all the civility they were evidently anxious to show us; so ready were they at that time to avenge the late murders-when even the odour of corruption still hung like a pestilence about the articles recovered from the plundered camp. The natives, however, perhaps out of pure cordiality, in return for our former disinterested kindness, persisted in their endeavours to introduce us very particularly to their women. They ordered them to come up to the party, divested of their cloaks and bags, and placed them naked before us. Most of the men appeared to possess two, the pair in general consisting of a fat plump gin and one much younger. Each man placed himself before his gins, and bowing forward with a shrug, the hands and arms being thrown back pointing to each gin, as if to say-Take which you please. The females, on their part, evinced no apprehensions, but seemed to regard us beings of a race so different, without the slightest indication of either fear, aversion, or surprise. Their looks were rather expressive of a ready acquiescence in the proffered kindness of the men; and when at length they brought a sable nymph vis-a-vis to Mr White, I could preserve my gravity no longer, and throwing the spears aside, I ordered the bullock-drivers to proceed. endeavoured to explain by gestures that two of our party had been killed by their countrymen, and pointed to the place, so that, as Mr White thought, they understood me. On seeing the party again in motion, most of the natives disappeared, one or two only lingered behind trees, and

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it then occurred to me to offer them a small iron tomahawk in exchange for that of stone which lay beside the spears. 1 therefore sent Dawkins to them, to make a bargain if he could, but on going back he saw most of the natives running off with spears in their hands, and could not make his object understood by those who remained. The earth in this part of our old track had become very soft, and although

the surface was undulating, it possessed a peculiar rottenness, so that where the upper crust bore me on horseback, the carts would suddenly sink to the axle. The horses at length began also to sink through the surface crust, and we were approaching a hollow which appeared likely to be still worse; and when our wheelcarriages at length got quite fast, I recollected some gestures of the natives, and

On the 26th, the party passed the old encampment beside the Barber's" stockyard near Tangulda, and, soon afterwards, met Mr Brown of Wallamoul and his stockman, on horseback, who had followed their track thus far, on the information of "Mr Brown," the native, and were proceeding to examine the " Barber's" stockyard. They informed them that the native guide had confessed to them that his dread of the savage natives had induced him to return. Mr Brown overtook them again next day, and informed them that he had found various brands of his cattle on portions of hide at the stockyard of that celebrated bushranger. On the morrow, the ford of Wallanburra was the only stream that separated them from the Christian world. That once passed, they might joyfully bid adieu to pestilence and famine, the lurking savage, and every fiend of flood and field. Under the sense of perfect security once more, and relieved from the anxiety inseparable from such charge, every object within the country of civilized man appeared, to the eyes of the Major, couleur de rose. After crossing the Peel, he left the party in charge of Mr White, and, attended only by his man Brown, commenced his ride homewards through the woods, forwarding from Segenhoe to Government his official despatch, announcing the return of the party and the result of the expedition.

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On his arrival at Sydney, the Major found that his report of the course of the Peel and Nammoy coinciding, as notified in his first despatch, with the Barber's description of these rivers, had encouraged the Government to place considerable confidence in that worthy's story. It was now obvious,

however, that the account of his travels beyond Tangulda was little else than pure invention. The Major examined him in the hulk at Sydney, in the presence of the acting governor, and was quite satisfied that he had never been beyond the Nandawar The Barber thenceforth conrange. ceived a deadly hatred to the man who had been the means of thus saving his life, and afterwards, in a letter, couched in the most grateful terms, offered to accompany the Major on his expedition to the interior in 1835, which offer the Major was inclined to accept, but Sir Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales, who had heard from the Commandant of Norfolk Island, that a man named George Clarke, according to private information, intended some injury to Major Mitchell, appreciated the offer more judiciously, as events proved, and sent "the Barber" to Van Diemen's Land, where, as we said before, he was soon after hanged. Had he gone with the Major he had murdered him "to a moral." He was, says the Major, truly a man of remarkable character, and far before his fellows in talents and cunning; a man who, under favourable circumstances, might have organized the scattered natives into formidable bands of marauders.

Notwithstanding Major Mitchell's proofs, from experience, that the Barber was an impostor, he so persisted in his story of the "big river," that a party of mounted police, commanded by Captain Forbes, of the 30th regiment, again repaired to Nammoy, in search of a gang of bush-rangers, but not without hopes of finding the Kindur. That active and enterprising

officer reached the Gwydir, in lat. 29° 27' 37", long. 150o 5'; and tracing upwards its course or a branch, arrived near the western extremity of the Nandawar range, and ascended a hill named by him Mount Albuera. He proved that any large river flowing to the north-west must be far to the northward of latitude 29o. All the rivers south of that parallel, and which had been described by "the Barber" as falling into such a river as the "Kindur," have been ascertained to belong wholly to the basin of the Darling.

The territory traversed by Major Mitchell was very eligible, on many parts, for the formation of grazing establishments; as a proof of which, flocks of sheep soon covered the plains of Walluba, and the country round the "Barber's" stock-yard has ever, since the return of the expedition, been occupied by the cattle of Sir John Jamieson. At a still greater distance from the settled districts, much valuable land will be found round the base of the Nandawar range. The region beyond these mountains, or between them and the Gwydir, is beautiful, and in the vicinity, or within sight of the high land, it is sufficiently well watered to become an important addition to the pastoral capabilities of New South Wales.

In our account of this, his first expedition, we have kept as closely as we could to Major Mitchell's own words, abridging his narrative; and we shall follow the same method in our articles on his second and third, which are even more interesting and important, especially the third, containing his description of Australia Felix.

THE progress of political events has served fully to verify those apprehensions, and to justify those warnings, which on various occasions, with all the authority to be derived from experience [of the past, fortified with facts occuring every day, in respect of the foreign policy of the empire, have been stated and enforced in the columns of this publication. To dignify that policy with the name of system, would be, if not an utter prostitution, a gross misapplication of terms; its course has been erratic and undisciplined as the mind of its director. Swayed by vague impulse, by fitful caprice, by puerile antipathies, its tendency has been, and continues still to be, uncertain as the temperamental oscillations of its author, and vain would be the attempt to predicate the policy of the morrow, from the fanciful indication of that of to-day. It would in truth be as idle to look for grapes from thistles, or wheat from tares; for the Foreign Secretary, the master-mind that should be, but is not, is so purely innocent of the first and elementary lessons of his art, that it would be miraculous indeed if he could master its more abstruse problems. The man who, as we know, and have heretofore exemplified, is so entirely deficient in the ruder outlines of geographical lore, as to be unacquainted with the territorial limits or position on the map of the remarkable localities of states, can hardly be fitted

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVIII.

to comprehend, and still less to treat scientifically, subjects of far more important interest in the political and commercial sense. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi is an imperishable monument in proof of this deplorable ignorance and absence of political forecast and geographical combination; the Prussian Customhouse league would not have been existent at this moment had one frontier, and one central State of the States composing it, however small in extent, and insignificant in their populations, been secured by treaty, and so detached, as at the time was easily to be accomplished. But Lord Palmerston was as unconscious of the geographical and relative bearings of the Germanic States, affected by, and now combined in the Union, as of the vast commercial interests involved in, and now sacrificed through his ignorance and rashness. To be vanquished by known and avowed rivals or foes, should be humiliation sufficient, but one wreath more bristles amidst the laurels of his Lordship-he is no less the victim of the political friends of his bosom, than of undisguised opponents. If by open foes he has been circumvented, no less has he been betrayed and overreached by artful allies in whom he trusted. The work of pillage has been proceeding on all sides, as well by direct assault and battery, as by secret sapping and mining; but of all wars, that of "war in disguise" is the most formid

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