We Saw The Bush Fires
Of The Natives Every Where Around Us; And Many Large Tracts Which Had
Been Recently Burnt.
The sun was getting very low, and my patients were
very tired, and yet no water was to be seen.
Cumuli, which had been
gradually collecting from one o'clock in the afternoon, cast their
shadows over the forest, and deceived the eye into the belief that the
desired creek was before us. At last, however, to our infinite
satisfaction, we entered into a scrub, formed of low stunted irregularly
branched tea-trees, where we found a shallow water-course, which
gradually enlarged into deep holes, which were dry, with the exception of
one which contained just a sufficient supply of muddy water to form a
stepping-stone for the next stage. Our latitude was 17 degrees 19 minutes
36 seconds.
July 14. - We travelled about eleven miles S.S.W. to latitude 17 degrees
28 minutes 11 seconds, over an immense box-flat, interrupted only by some
plains and by two tea-tree creeks; the tea-trees were stunted and scrubby
like those of our last stage. At the second creek we passed an old
camping place of the natives, where we observed a hedge of dry branches,
and, parallel to it, and probably to the leeward, was a row of fire
places. It seemed that the natives sat and lay between the fires and the
row of branches. There were, besides, three huts of the form of a
bee-hive, closely thatched with straw and tea-tree bark.
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