I took a set of lunar sights, and
calculated my longitude 143 degrees 30 minutes.
May 31. - We had scarcely left, our camp, when swarms of crows and kites
(Milvus isiurus) took possession of it, after having given us a fair
fight during the previous days, whilst we were drying the meat. Their
boldness was indeed remarkable, and if the natives had as much, we should
soon have had to quit our camp. Proceeding, we travelled over a broken
and very stony country, with a stiff soil, but mixed with so much sand
that even the Severn tree grew well. There was another small tree, the
branches of which were thickly covered with bright green leaves; it had
round inferior fruit, about half an inch in diameter, which was full of
seeds: when ripe, it was slightly pulpy and acidulous, and reminded me of
the taste of the coarse German rye bread. In consequence of this
resemblance, we called this little tree the Bread tree of the Lynd. I ate
handfulls of this fruit without the slightest inconvenience. A species of
Pittosporum, and several Acacias, Pandanus, and the leguminous Ironbark,
were scattered through an open forest of Ironbark and lanceolate box. I
observed here a very ornamental little tree, with drooping branches and
linear lanceolate drooping leaves three inches long; it very much
resembled a species of Capparis that I had seen at the Isaacs. Its
blossoms are very small, and the calyx and corolla have each five
divisions; the stamens are opposite the petals; it bore a fruit like a
small apple, with a hard outside, but pulpy and many seeded within, like
Capparis; the calyx was attached to the base of the fruit.
The rock was still granitic, with small outbreaks of basalt; the leaflets
of white mica were visible everywhere in the soil and in the large
ant-hills, whose building materials were derived from the decomposed
felspar. The bed of the river was frequently rocky, and very broad, with
low banks and no water. The highest flood-marks we observed were from six
to eight feet above the level of the bed; these marks were on the trunks
of Casuarinas, Melaleucas, and flooded-gum, which grew along the channel.
The country in general had a winterly appearance; and the grass round the
camp was dry, but I observed the fine grass of the Isaacs, and many
varieties which grow on the Suttor and Burdekin, which will yield an
excellent feed in the proper season; and, even at the present, neither
our bullocks nor horses were starving.
The part of the country in which we were, possesses great interest in a
meteorological point of view. In the centre of the York Peninsula,
between the east coast and the gulf, and on the slopes to the latter, as
might be expected, the northerly and easterly winds which set in so
regularly after sunset, as well along the Burdekin as on the basaltic
table land, failed, and were succeeded here by slight westerly and
easterly breezes, without any great and decided movement in the
atmosphere; and westerly winds, which had formerly been of rare
occurrence, became more frequent and stronger.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 139 of 272
Words from 71913 to 72453
of 141354
