Their party must have been large, for they approached to within about three hundred yards of the tents, leaving a trail as broad and large as was made by our ponies and party together.

I did not much like their hanging about us for so many days as I rather mistrusted their intentions; their object however appeared to have been to examine the ponies, for they had only come as far as the tethering ground and, after wandering about there a little, had again retired.

We were unfortunate in our search for a good line of country by which to proceed, but I made some important additions to my map.
MARSH AND SANDSTONE RANGE.
March 22.
As fine weather had apparently set in again we this morning resumed our journey.

The poor ponies looked very weak and wretched when they were brought up to start, and we were all ragged, dirty, and worn out from the constant exposure to wind and rain; indeed our appearance was altogether very miserable on moving off, and our progress, too, very slow and fatiguing, both to ourselves and the horses, on account of the swampy nature of the ground; but we strenuously persevered until near noon, when I halted for breakfast at the foot of some lofty hills, at the base of which ran the stream which was giving us so much trouble.

As soon as we had despatched our scanty breakfast I tried with a party to find a passage across the marsh, but our search was in vain and, on examining the sandstone range on the other side of the stream, I found it so precipitous that our weak ponies could not possibly have clambered up it.
NATIVE BRIDGE.
Whilst on our return we found a native bridge, formed of a fallen tree, which rested against two others and was secured in its position by forked boughs.
PRECIPITOUS PASS.
I was thus obliged to continue to travel in a north-east direction for the remainder of the afternoon, when we found, at last, a passage over the marsh, but made vain attempts to cross the sandstone range in no less than four different places; the ponies were so weak and the route so precipitous that each time we were obliged to return.