They Spoke A Language Entirely Different From That Of The
Natives Of Darling Downs, But "Yarrai" Still Meant Water.
Charley, who
conversed with them for some time, told me that they had informed him, as
well as he could understand, that the Mackenzie flowed to the north-east.
Brown found an empty seed-vessel of the Nelumbium, in their camp.
At
sunset we killed our bullock, and during the 17th and 18th occupied
ourselves in cutting up the meat, drying it in the sun, frying the fat,
preparing the hide, and greasing our harness. Charley, in riding after
the horses, came to some fine lagoons, which were surrounded by a deep
green belt of Nelumbiums. This plant grows, with a simple tap root, in
the deep soft mud, bearing one large peltate leaf on a leaf stalk, about
eight feet high, and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, the
flower-stalk being of the same length or even longer, crowned with a pink
flower resembling that of a Nymphaea, but much larger: its seed-vessel is
a large cone, with perpendicular holes in its cellular tissue, containing
seeds, about three quarters of an inch in length. We found the following
shells in the river, viz.; two species of Melania, a Paludina, the
lanceolate Limnaea, a cone-shaped Physa (?), a Cyclas with longitudinal
ribs, and the Unio before described. Murphy shot an Ostioglossum, a
Malacopterygious fish, about three feet long, with very large scales,
each scale having a pink spot.
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