- We travelled in all about eleven miles N. 55 degrees W. to
latitude 13 degrees 50 minutes.
After following the creek, on which we
had encamped, to its head, we passed over a scrubby stringy-bark forest;
and, whenever we came to watercourses going to the eastward, we turned to
the north-west and westward. We passed several sandstone hills and ridges
rising out of this sandy table land, and attempted to cross one of them,
but our path was intercepted by precipices and chasms, forming an
insurmountable barrier to our cattle. We, therefore, followed a
watercourse to the southward, winding between two ranges to the westward
and southward, and continued again to the north-west, which brought us to
a tributary of the creek we had just left, and in which we found large
water-holes covered with Nymphaeas and Villarsias.
The strata of the range which we ascended, dipped to the south-west; in
which direction I saw a high range, probably the continuation of the one
I had observed at yesterday's stage along Roper's Creek.
The Melaleuca-gum, the Cypress-pine, Fusanus and Banksia abounded in the
stringy-bark forest, and along the creeks; and the flats round the
water-holes were covered with a dark green sedge, which, however, our
cattle did not relish so much as, from its inviting verdure, I had
anticipated would have been the case. The remains of fresh-water turtles
were frequently noticed in the camps of the natives; and Mr. Calvert had
seen one depicted with red ochre on the rocks. It is probable that this
animal forms a considerable part of the food of the natives. John Murphy
reported that he had seen a hut of the natives constructed of sheets of
stringy-bark, and spacious enough to receive our whole party; the huts
which I had observed were also very spacious, but covered with tea-tree
bark. Smoke from the natives' fires was seen from the range in every
direction, and their burnings invariably led us to creeks.
Charley shot a rock wallabi of a different species from any we had
previously seen: it was of a light grey colour; the tail was smooth, and
its black tip was more bushy than in other species; there were two white
spots on the shoulder; it was smaller than those of Ruined Castle Creek,
and the red wallabies of the Mitchell and of the shores of the gulf. John
shot a large Iguana of remarkably bright colours, which were perhaps
owing to a late desquamation of the skin.
Nov. 6. - We travelled fourteen miles N. 30 degrees W. to latitude 13
degrees 38 minutes 28 seconds, and encamped in a little creek, at the
head of which was a grassy drooping tea-tree swamp. We left all the
eastern water-courses to the right, and followed several which went down
to the southward, up to their heads. The country, with the exception of
the ridges which bounded the narrow valleys of watercourses, was a sandy
level stringy-bark forest, interspersed with Melaleuca-gum and leguminous
Ironbark; saplings of which formed large tracts of a low open under-wood.
We had passed a large but dry swamp, having no outlet, and surrounded
with Pandanus, when Brown called my attention to an opening in the
forest, and to a certain dim appearance of the atmosphere peculiar to
extensive plains and valleys.
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