Brown accompanied me to reconnoitre the country; and we had scarcely travelled two miles along the creek, when my attention was attracted by the remains of a hut, consisting of a ridge pole, and two forked stakes, about six feet high, both having been cut with a sharp iron tomahawk.

Neither of us doubted that this was the work of a white man, probably a runaway from the settlement at Moreton Bay.

A few miles farther we came to an anabranch of the creek, which turned considerably to the westward.

I followed it, and found a shallow watercourse that came out of the scrub, which I also examined in search of water.

It led me to another deep channel within the scrub, which looked unusually green, and contained some very large water-holes; but there was no water in them.
Turning round one of its bends, we saw a column of thick smoke rising from its left bank, near a fine pool of water.