As The Night
Advances, The Blackfellows' Songs Die Away; The Chatting Tongue Of Murphy
Ceases, After Having Lulled Mr. Gilbert
To sleep; and at last even Mr.
Calvert is silent, as Roper's short answers became few and far between.
The
Neighing of the tethered horse, the distant tinkling of the bell, or
the occasional cry of night birds, alone interrupt the silence of our
camp. The fire, which was bright as long as the corroborri songster kept
it stirred, gradually gets dull, and smoulders slowly under the large pot
in which our meat is simmering; and the bright constellations of heaven
pass unheeded over the heads of the dreaming wanderers of the wilderness,
until the summons of the laughing jackass recalls them to the business of
the coming day.
May 2. - We travelled in a N.W. direction to lat. 18 degrees 50 minutes 11
seconds; at first over the box flats, alternating with an undulating open
country. About three miles before making our camp, we passed several
small plains at the foot of what appeared to be basaltic ridges, and came
to the dry channel of a river, with reeds and occasional water-holes, and
lined with fine flooded-gum trees and Casuarinas, but without the
dropping tea trees and the Moreton Bay ash, the latter of which seemed to
be the prerogative of the Burdekin. At its left side a basaltic ridge
rose, covered with thick scrub, and at its base extended a small plain,
with black soil strewed with quartz pebbles.
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