FIRST EXPEDITION IN QUEST OF THE KINDUR

The discoveries of Oxley and Sturt on the Peel and Hastings rivers eastward, and of the general courses of the Lachlan, the Macquarie, the Murrumbidgee, and the Murray, had opened up a vast country, and produced a correspondent sensation in New South Wales, and, to a certain degree, in England. True, the major portion of that country, through which the chief of these rivers ran, was very unpromising, but this only stimulated the desire to ascertain whether better were not beyond. The discovery of the real course of the Murray, into which most of them fell, had dissipated the prevalent notion that the great outlet of Australian waters was to the north-west, and directed attention more fixedly towards those regions where the land was richer and more inviting. To the eastward, on the Peel, the Hastings, the Gwydir, and Dumaresque, parts of which had been seen by Allan Cunningham, and in the south-west on the Murrumbidgee, rich and beautiful country lay, and already eager squatters were spreading their flocks and herds over it, and were still insatiable for fresh and boundless pastures. It was a new Arcadian world opened up, and was arrayed in more charms to the men of wool, mutton and beef, than ever was the ancient Arcadia by the highest art of the old poets.