had entered, and when we looked for that by which we had been led into it we could hardly believe that the insignificant gap that presented itself to us was indeed the termination of the beautiful stream whose course we had thus successfully followed. I can only compare the relief we experienced to that which the seaman feels on weathering the rock upon which he expected that his vessel would have struck, to the calm which succeeds moments of feverish anxiety, when the dread of danger is succeeded by the certainty of escape." This was indeed a noble river. Its width was 350 feet, its depth not less than 12, and its current was running at the rate of two and a half knots an hour. The discoverers believed they had now obtained ample reward for all their toils and trials. This was the same river which had been discovered and crossed by Hume and Hovell where the town of Albury now stands, but between that point, where it had been first seen by civilized man, and the part now visited by Sturt, it had received so many tributaries as to make it a much larger and, in a sense, another river. Sturt called it the Murray, after the Imperial Colonial Secretary, but the original discoverer had named its upper course the Hume in memory of his father. For a time these names were confined to the respective parts of the river; and Dr. Lang censured Count Strzelecki for departing from this usage in his published work. General practice has now deserted the Doctor and followed the Count.
The number and persistent hostility of the aborigines
