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On the other hand, could anything have been more just than the punishment inflicted on the boy who stole my servant Davenport's blanket at Fort Grey? as mentioned in the present work; or the decision of the two sons of the Boocolo of Williorara, as regarded the conveyance of our letter-bag to Lake Victoria? Here are broad instances of honesty that would do credit to any civilized nation.
As the reader, however, will learn in the perusal of these pages, I was wholly disappointed in the character of the Williorara. Where that channel joins the Darling, the upward course of that river is to the north-east; and as that was a course directly opposite to the one I felt myself bound to take, I abandoned it and took at once to the hills.
It appeared that the Williorara made a circuitous and extensive sweep and entered Cawndilla on the opposite side to that of the river, so that he had to cross a portion of the lake, and thus found that the floods had not reached it. Mr. Browne also stated that the extent of the lake was equal to that of Lake Victoria, but that it could at no time be more than eighteen inches deep.
There is no doubt indeed but that they punish each other for similar offences, although perhaps the moral turpitude of the action is not understood by them. The Darling at this time had ceased to flow, and formed a chain of ponds. The Williorara was quite dry from one end to the other, as were the lagoons and creeks in the neighbourhood.
There can be no doubt, indeed, but that we owed our present supply of water both at this place and at the Coonbaralba pass, to the rains that fell in the hills during the week we remained at Williorara.
His plan was to follow that river up as far as the Williorara or Laidley's Ponds, a small western tributary of the Darling, opposite the point were Mitchell turned back, in 1835, after his conflict with the natives. Thence he intended to strike north-west, hoping thus to avoid the gloomy environs of Lake Torrens, and its treacherous bed.
When I was carried out of my tent to the cart, I was surprised to see the verdure of that very ground against the barrenness of which I had had to declaim the preceding year; I mean the flats of the Williorara, now covered with grass, and looking the very reverse of what they had done before; so hazardous is it to give an opinion of such a country from a partial glimpse of it.
In their physical condition they are inferior to the natives of the Murray in size and strength, but we have seen many very handsome men, and, although diminutive in stature, exceedingly well proportioned. The tribe at Williorara, Laidley's Ponds, numbers about eighty souls; the greater proportion women and children.
Be that as it may, it was impossible for me to remain in such a place, and I therefore turned back towards the Darling, and pitched my tents at its junction with the Williorara. For three or four days prior to our arrival at Laidley's Ponds, the upward course of the river had been somewhat to the west of north. The course of Laidley's Ponds was exceedingly tortuous, but almost due west.
It struck me, therefore, that it would be a much more eligible line for the expedition to run up the Darling to lat. 32 degrees 26 minutes, and then to trace the Williorara upwards into the hills, with the chance of meeting the opposite fall of waters, rather than to entangle myself and waste my first energies amidst scrub and salt lagoons.
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