The country was so very scrubby and difficult, that
we travelled from morning until long after sunset before we reached the
place. The long journey had both tired and galled our bullocks and
horses, and our packs had been torn into pieces by the scrub. This
induced me to stay a day at this creek (which I called Moonlight Creek,
as it had been found and explored during moonlight), to allow some rest
both to my bullocks and myself, whom the long riding had much exhausted,
and also to re-arrange our packs.
The composition of the scrub depended on the nature of the soil. The
narrow-leaved tea-tree, in shrubs from five to seven feet high, and the
broad-leaved tea-tree from twenty to twenty-five feet high, grew on a
sandy loam, with many ant-hills between them; the little Severn tree and
the glaucous Terminalia preferred the light sandy soil with small
ironstone pebbles, on which the ant-hills were rare, or entirely wanting;
the raspberry-jam tree crowded round water-holes, which were frequently
rocky; and the bloodwood, the leguminous Iron-bark, the box, and
apple-gum, formed patches of open forest.
We collected a great quantity of Terminalia gum, and prepared it in
different ways to render it more palatable. The natives, whose tracks we
saw everywhere in the scrub, with frequent marks where they had collected
gum - seemed to roast it. It dissolved with difficulty in water: added to
gelatine soup, it was a great improvement; a little ginger, which John
had still kept, and a little salt, would improve it very much. But it
acted as a good lenient purgative on all of us.
We found the days, when travelling in the scrub, excessively hot, for the
surrounding vegetation prevented us from feeling the sea-breeze; very
cold easterly and south-easterly winds prevailed during the night.
August 24. - Mr. Calvert and Brown, whom I had sent to reconnoitre the
country, returned with the sad intelligence that they had found no water.
They had crossed a great number of creeks of different sizes, with fine
rocky water-holes, which seemed all to rise in scrubby ironstone hills,
and had a course from S. W. to N. E. and E. N. E.; but towards their
heads they were dry, and lower down they contained salt water. The two
explorers had unfortunately forgotten their bag of provisions, and were
consequently compelled to return before they could accomplish their
object. As I anticipated a very long stage, and perhaps a camp without
water, I had some wallabi skins softened and tied over our quart pots
filled with water, which enabled us to carry about eight quarts with us.
August 25. - We accordingly started early, and travelled for several miles
through a pretty open broad-leaved tea-tree forest, formed by small trees
from twenty to thirty feet high.
