It Came From W.S.W., And Went To E.N.E. We
Proceeded Eight Or Ten Miles Along Its Banks Before We Came To Fresh
Water.
In its immediate neighbourhood, the country was beautifully
grassed, and openly timbered with bloodwood, stringy-bark, the leguminous
Ironbark, and the white-barked tree of the Abel Tasman.
Over the short
space of eight miles we saw at least one hundred emus, in flocks of
three, five, ten, and even more, at a time: they had been attracted here
by the young herbage. We killed seven of them, but they were not fat, and
none seemed more than a year old. The extraordinary success induced me to
call this river, the "Seven Emu River."
By following a track of the natives, I found a fine well in the bed of
the river, under the banks; the water was almost perfectly fresh; and
that of the river was only slightly brackish. A fishing weir crossed the
stream, where it was about twenty yards broad, and from two to three feet
deep. We were occupied to a late hour of the night in cutting up our
emus. I had intended to stop the next day, but, as our camp in the bed of
the river was surrounded by a thick underwood; as the dew was very heavy,
the water brackish, and the young feed dangerous for our cattle, which
had fed so long on dry grass, I thought it prudent to continue my
journey. The longitude of this river, according to my daily distances,
was 137 degrees 5 minutes.
Sept. 15. - We travelled about fifteen miles N. 25 degrees W., passing for
the first eight miles over a very fine available country, but without
meeting with water, or even with a watercourse. Beyond that, however, the
country became more undulating, and we crossed, for about four miles, a
most wretched sandstone scrub. Here we saw some natives, but they avoided
us. The scrub opened upon fine box flats, with numerous shallow
watercourses; farther on, they were interrupted by scrubby or thickly
timbered elevations, on which we met with some Cycas palms from thirty to
fifty feet high, thick at the butt, and tapering gradually towards the
crown. At one of the shallow creeks, which suddenly became rocky, and
probably formed falls and rapids in the wet season, we struck upon a well
beaten foot-path of the natives, which led us through Cypress pine
thickets, and over open lawns to a creek, whose right bank was covered
with Cycas groves of the most strikingly picturesque appearance; and here
I observed that the Cycas, although it generally has a simple stem,
frequently grew with two or three arms. The foot-path went up the creek:
lower down, I found broad, deep, but dry water-holes; and, still lower,
Salicornia indicated the approach to the salt water. The foot-path
conducted us from one Zamia grove to another, which alternated with fine
forest composed principally of white-gum, the fresh green foliage of
which was extremely pleasing to the eye.
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