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The Murrumbidgee is a river which runs westerly from the district called Yass Plains, situated very nearly at the south-western extremity of New South Wales.
This fruit grows upon a low brambly-looking bush, upon the sand-hills or in the flats, where the soil is of a saline nature. It is found also in the plains bordering upon the lower parts of the Murrumbidgee, but in much greater abundance along the whole line of coast to the westward.
The beautifully-timbered plains, or the limestone cliffs of the noble Murray the naked plains that bound on either side the strip of forest-trees of huge dimensions, by which the Lachlan is bordered, the constantly full stream, the water-worn and lightly-timbered banks, the clear open space between the river and its distant margin of reeds, which mark the character of the Murrumbidgee, the low grassy banks or limestone rocks, the cascades and caverns, the beautiful festoons of creeping plants, the curious form of the duck-billed platypus, which are to be found on the Glenelg; the sandstone wastes of the Wollondilly, the grassy surface of the pretty Yarrayne, with its trees on its brink instead of on its bank; the peculiar grandeur of the tremendous ravine, 1,500 feet in depth, down which the Shoalhaven flows; these and many more remarkable features of scenery in the Australian rivers, would afford abundance of materials for description either in poetry or prose.
Leaving Adelaide, you climb in the train the pretty Mount Lofty Mountains and then sweep down on to the plains and cross the Murray River near its mouth. The Murray is the greatest of Australian rivers. It rises in the Australian Alps, and gathers on its way to the sea the Murrumbidgee and the Darling tributaries. There is a curious floating life on these rivers.
With these two as leaders, and six convict servants to make up the party, they set out from Lake George, carrying their provisions in two carts, drawn by teams of oxen. As soon as they met the Murrumbidgee their troubles commenced; the river was so broad and swift that it was difficult to see how they could carry their goods across.
Among other superstitions of the natives, they believe in the existence of an individual called in the Murrumbidgee Biam, or the Murray Biam-baitch-y, who has the form and figure of a black, but is deformed in the lower extremities, and is always either sitting cross-legged on the ground, or ferrying about in a canoe.
The whole plain of the Murrumbidgee has been, at not a very distant date, beneath the ocean; as the Madrepores, and other fossils in the limestone cliffs of the river testify. Earthquakes have been felt in South Australia since its settlement. A very intelligent gentleman there told me that he had noted eleven since his arrival; quite perceptible enough to leave no doubt as to their character.
This programme was, however, departed from in many ways. The new ground broken by Mitchell would thus be the Murray River above the junction with the Morumbidgee or Murrumbidgee, as it was now called, and it was supposed that he would be able to identify it with the Hume River of the explorer of that name.
We got well across the dry country between the Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan, now abounding with pools of water; and, having crossed the latter river, held on our course toward Croker's Range, which we skirted; and, after having been about a fortnight out, arrived at the lowest station on the Macquarrie late in the afternoon. This was our present destination.
It has been included in the programmes of reciters from the Murrumbidgee to the Vaal, from John O'Groat's to Land's End, and is now being published as a separate volume in England and America. It has been dramatised several times, and is more alive to-day than it was when it was published nearly twenty years ago. Almost the same may be said of The Three Commandments in the Vulgar Tongue.
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