But A Flat Country, Openly Timbered,
Without Any Break Of The Surface Or Of The Forest, Was By No Means
Encouraging; and I have frequently travelled more than twenty-five miles
in a straight line without obtaining my object, In
Coming on creeks, it
required some experience in the country, to know whether to travel up or
down the bed: some being well provided with water immediately at the foot
of the range, and others being entirely dry at their upper part, but
forming large puddled holes, lower down, in a flat country. From daily
experience, we acquired a sort of instinctive feeling as to the course we
should adopt, and were seldom wrong in our decisions.
The ridges, near the water-holes on which we were encamped, are composed
of an igneous rock containing much iron, with which the water was
impregnated to such a degree, that our tea turned quite black and inky.
The natives were very numerous in these parts, and their tracks were
everywhere visible. They had even followed the tracks of Mr. Gilbert's
and Brown's horses of the preceding day.
The night was bright; the day cloudy, and the wind easterly. I went with
Charley, in the afternoon of the 17th, to examine the extent of the
scrubby country, of which Mr. Gilbert had given us so poor an account.
The channel of the river became narrow and deep, with steep banks, as it
enters the scrub, and there the flooded gums entirely disappeared. The
scrub is about eight miles long, and from two to three miles broad, and
is tolerably open.
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