"It Is A Miserable Country!
Nothing To Shoot At, Nothing To Look At, But Box Trees And Anthills." The
Box-Forest Was, However, Very Open And The Grass Was Good; And The
Squatter Would Probably Form A Very Different Opinion Of Its Merits.
When
we were preparing to start in the morning some natives came to look at
us; but they kept within the scrub, and at a respectable distance.
July 18. - We travelled south-west by west, over a succession of plains,
and of undulating Grevillea forest, which changed into tea-tree thickets,
and stunted tea-tree scrubs, on a sandy soil with Salicornia, Binoe's
Trichinium, and several other salt plants. At about five miles from the
camp, we came to salt-water inlets, densely surrounded by mangroves, and
with sandy flats extending along their banks, encrusted with salt.
Charley rode through the dry mangrove scrub, and came on a sandy beach
with the broad Ocean before him. We had a long way to go to the east and
S.S.E. to get out of the reach of the brackish water, and came at last to
grassy swamps, with a good supply of fresh water. We encamped in lat. 17
degrees 41 minutes 52 seconds; about ten miles south by west from our
last camp. Charley was remarkably lucky to-day, in catching an emu, and
shooting six teals, a brown wallabi of the Mitchell, and a kangaroo with
a broad nail at the end of its tail. Brown also shot a sheldrake and a
Malacorhynchus membranaceus. During the time that we were travelling to
the southward, we had a north-east wind during the forenoon, which in the
afternoon veered round to the east and south. Such a change, in a
locality like ours, was very remarkable; because, in the neighbourhood of
the sea, it was natural to expect a sea breeze, instead of which,
however, the breeze was off the land. The cause can only be attributed to
a peculiar formation of the country south and south-east of the gulf.
July 19. - We travelled seven miles and a half due south, through a
succession of stunted tea-tree thickets and tea-tree forests, in which
the little bread-tree of the Lynd was common. We passed two creeks with
rocky beds, the one with salt water, and the other fresh. The natives had
been digging here, either for shells or roots. We came to a fine river
with salt water about two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards broad,
with low banks fringed with stunted mangroves. The well beaten foot-path
and the numerous fire-places of the natives, proved how populous the
country must be. In following a foot-path, we came to some large lagoons,
but containing very little water; the natives had been digging in the dry
parts, perhaps for the roots of Nymphaea. We encamped at one of them in
lat. 17 degrees 49 minutes.
The country along the river was an open box-forest.
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