Time for them, and employed ourselves, in the
meanwhile, with cutting and eating the tops of Livistona. Many were in
blossom, others were in fruit; the latter is an oblong little stone fruit
of very bitter taste. Only the lowest part of the young shoots is
eatable, the remainder being too bitter. I think they affected the bowels
even more than the shoots of the Corypha palm.
We made a short Sunday stage through a fine forest, in which Livistona
became more and more frequent. We crossed several creeks going to the
westward; the country became more hilly, and we followed a large creek
with a good supply of rainwater, until it turned too much to the
westward, when we encamped. The clear night enabled me to make my
latitude, by an observation of Castor, to be 12 degrees 21 minutes 49
seconds. We had accomplished about five miles to the northward.
We saw two emus, and Charley was fortunate enough to shoot one of them;
it was the fattest we had met with round the gulf. During the clear, dewy
night, flocks of geese and ducks passed from the west to the north-east,
and I anticipated that the next stage would bring us again to large
swamps. The bed of the creek on which we encamped was composed of
granitic rock.
CHAPTER XV
JOY AT MEETING NATIVES SPEAKING SOME ENGLISH - THEY ARE VERY
FRIENDLY - ALLAMURR - DISCERNMENT OF NATIVE SINCERITY - EAST ALLIGATOR
RIVER - CLOUDS OF DUST MISTAKEN FOR SMOKE - IMPATIENCE TO REACH THE END OF
THE JOURNEY - NATIVES STILL MORE INTELLIGENT - NYUALL - BUFFALOES; SOURCE
FROM WHICH THEY SPRUNG - NATIVE GUIDES ENGAGED; BUT THEY DESERT US - MOUNT
MORRIS BAY - RAFFLES BAY - LEAVE THE PACKHORSE AND BULLOCK BEHIND - BILL
WHITE - ARRIVE AT PORT ESSINGTON - VOYAGE TO SYDNEY.
Dec. 1. - We travelled about eleven or twelve miles to the northward, for
the greater part through forest land, large tracts of which were occupied
solely by Livistona. A species of Acacia and stringy-bark saplings formed
a thick underwood. The open lawns were adorned by various plants, amongst
which we noticed a species of Drosera, with white and red blossoms? a
Mitrasacme; a narrow-leaved Ruellia, the white primrose, the red
prostrate malvaceous plant, a low shrubby Pleurandra, and an orchideous
plant - one of the few representatives of this family in the Australian
tropics; the most interesting, however, was a prostrate Grevillea, with
oblong smooth leaves, and with thyrsi of fine scarlet flowers; which I
consider to be Grevillea Goodii, R. Br.
We crossed two small creeks, and, at the end of three miles, we came to a
Pandanus brook, the murmuring of whose waters over a rocky pebbly bed was
heard by us at a considerable distance. A broad foot-path of the natives
led along its banks, probably to large lagoons, of which it might be the
outlet.
