covered with trees, many of which, Tench remarked, were 'bent by the force of the current. … Some of them contained rubbish and drift wood in their branches, at least forty-five feet above the level of the stream. … Our natives had evidently never seen this river before; they stared at it with surprise. … Their total ignorance of the country, and of the direction in which they had walked, appeared when they were asked which way Rose Hill lay, for they pointed almost oppositely to it. Of our compass they had taken early notice, and had talked much to each other about it; they comprehended its use, and called it "Naa - Moro," literally, "To see the way." A more significant or expressive term cannot be found.'
Following the course of the river downwards, and keeping as close as possible to the bank, the party, suffering greatly from fatigue caused by the impediments to walking—scrub and swampy ground—at last reached a deep creek which effectually barred their progress. They therefore followed its course till nightfall, and then halted. 'Our natives,' says Tench, 'continued to hold out stoutly. The hindrances to walking by the river side, which plagued and entangled us so much, seemed not to be heeded by them, and they wound through them with ease; but to us they were intolerably tiresome. Our perplexities afforded them an inexhaustible fund of merriment and derision. Did the
