Mr. Kennedy returned at eleven A.M., having found water at Canbelego. Yuranigh brought with him a large green specimen of the fruit of the CAPPARIS MITCHELLII, which he called an apple, being new to him, but which Dicky, the younger native from the Lower Bogan, knew, and said was called "MOGUILE;" he also said that it was eaten by the natives.
18TH JANUARY.--The party moved to Canbelego where one or two small ponds remained, but on the plains adjacent there was better grass than we had hitherto found near those places where, for the sake of water, we had been obliged to encamp. I sent Mr. Kennedy again forward looking for water, but he returned sooner than I expected, and after following the river down twelve miles, without finding any. I was now within the same distance of Duck Creek, in which Mr. Larmer had found abundance of water when I sent him to survey it upwards during my last return journey up the Bogan. It also seemed, from the direction in which Piper pointed, that the old gins referred to Duck Creek, as containing water; and as the course of that creek, so far as shown on maps, led even more directly to the Darling than did the Bogan, I was willing in such a season of extreme drought, to avail myself of its waters. My eye had been much injured by straining at stars while at the camp near Walwadyer, and I was obliged to send Mr. Kennedy on one of my own horses, followed by Graham, to examine the water in Duck Creek. I instructed him to proceed on a bearing of 35° E. of North, until he should reach the creek, and if he found water in it to return direct to the camp, but that if water was not found on first making the creek, then he was to follow Duck Creek up to its junction with an eastern branch, surveyed also by Mr. Larmer, and to return thence to the camp on a bearing of 240°. I also sent Corporal Macavoy with Yuranigh down the Bogan, to ascertain if the channel contained any pond between our camp and the part previously examined by Mr. Kennedy.
This officer returned from Duck Creek after an absence of twelve hours, and reported that he had found no water in Duck Creek after examining its bed twelve miles; but that he had found a fine lagoon on the plains near the head of the eastern branch, but around which there was no grass, all having been recently burnt.