We Afterwards Found This Fish In The
Waters Flowing Into The Gulf Of Carpentaria; Both On Its Eastern And
Western Sides:
And, according to the natives of Port Essington, to whom I
showed the dried specimen, it is also found in the permanent water-holes
of the Cobourg peninsula.
Jan. 18. - Leaving my party to complete the process of drying and packing
the charqui, I started with my two black companions to examine the
country to the north-west. After passing the gullies in the immediate
neighbourhood of the river, we came to sandstone ridges covered with an
almost impenetrable scrub; chiefly composed of stiff and prickly shrubs,
many of them dead, with dry branches filling the intervals. As no grass
grew on the poor soil, the bush-fires - those scavengers of the
forest - are unable to enter and consume the dead wood, which formed the
principal obstacle to our progress. Difficult, however, as it was to
penetrate such thickets with pack-bullocks, I had no choice left, and
therefore proceeded in the same direction. In a short time, we reached an
open Bricklow scrub containing many dry water-holes, which, farther on,
united into a watercourse. We passed a creek flowing to the eastward to
join the Mackenzie, and continued our route through patches of Bricklow
scrub, alternating with Bastard-box forest, and open Vitex scrub, in
which the Moreton Bay ash was very plentiful. About eight miles from our
camp, we came upon an open forest of narrow-leaved Ironbark (E.
resinifera) and Bastard-box, covering gentle slopes, from which shallow
well-grassed hollows descended to the westward.
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