Ship Loads Of Pure Salt Could Have Been Collected Here In
A Very Short Time, Requiring Nothing But Drying And Housing, Until It
Could Be Removed.
Its appearance was quite new and wonderful to me, who
had been so busily employed in scraping the incrustations full of mud
from the dry beds of the creeks.
Yesterday, Brown shot a black-winged pelican; the pectoral muscles and
the extremities of which proved good eating; but the inside and the fat
were of a nauseously fishy taste. Charley shot a bustard, and John a
black ibis. The smoke of the Black-fellows' fires was seen to the
southward. The fresh grass of recent burnings extended over all the
plains, and even near our waterle encampment, where its bright verdure
made us believe that we approached a fresh water swamp.
July 27. - I stopped at this camp to allow our cattle to recover from
their fatigue; intending afterwards to proceed up the river until I came
into the zone of fresh water, which we had left, and then to continue my
course to the west and north-west. During our stay in this place, Mr.
Calvert found a piece of pack canvass, rolled round some utensils of the
natives.
July 28. - We travelled about ten miles south by east; but were soon
compelled by the salt-water creeks to leave the river, which seemed to
come from south-south-east. We crossed several mangrove creeks, one of
which contained a weir formed by many rows of dry sticks. These creeks
were too boggy to be forded in any part where the tide reached, and we
had to follow them up for several miles, until their beds divided into
lagoons. Here the drooping tea-tree re-appeared, which I considered to
indicate the presence of fresh water, at least for a part of the year. I
found them, however, at times, on salt-water rivers, not on the level of
the salt water, but high on the banks within the reach of the freshes
during the rainy season. In turning again towards the river, we crossed a
large plain, from which pillars of smoke were seen rising above the green
belt of raspberry-jam trees which covered the approaches to the river.
After passing some forest of Moreton Bay ash, bloodwood, clustered box,
Acacia (Inga moniliformis), and a few Bauhinias, we came to another
salt-water creek, with a sandy bed and deposits of fine salt. Very narrow
flats extended along both sides of the creek, and rose by water-torn
slopes into large treeless plains. The slopes were, as usual, covered
with raspberry-jam trees. I saw smoke to the south-ward, and, on
proceeding towards it, we came to a fine lagoon of fresh water in the bed
of the creek.
July 29. - We travelled about five miles and a half south-south-east up
the creek, and encamped in latitude 18 degrees 2 minutes. The character
of the country was the same.
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