Thunder-Storms Very Generally Come With Westerly Cloudy
Weather, With North-Westerly, And Northerly Winds.
We busied ourselves in
extracting the oil from the skin of the emu:
This operation was performed
by suspending it on sticks before a gentle fire, the oil dripping from it
into a shallow vessel. It is of a light amber colour, and is very useful
in oiling the locks of our fire-arms; it has been considered a good
anti-rheumatic, and I occasionally used it for that purpose.
Mr. Gilbert skinned the tail of the kangaroo to make a bag for holding
fat; but it broke and ripped so easily when dry, as to render it unfit
for that purpose. We used the skins of the kangaroos to cover our
flour-bags, which were in a most wretched condition. Our latitude was 25
degrees 19 minutes 19 seconds.
Nov. 28. - Charley and Brown informed us that they had followed the
watercourse, and had come to a broad river with precipitous banks, which
would not allow any passage for our horses and cattle; they also stated
that the watercourse on which we were encamped, became a rocky gully, and
that it would be impossible to cross it lower down. From this information
I supposed that a river, like the Robinson, rising in many gullies of the
north-east ranges, and flowing in south-west direction was before us; I,
therefore, decided upon heading it. It was, however, very difficult to
find a leading spur, and we frequently came on deep and impassable
gullies, surrounded by a dense thicket of cypresspine, and a great
variety of shrubs peculiar to sandstone rock. After travelling about nine
miles in a N. 15 degrees E. direction, we came to a subordinate range,
and having found, in one of its watercourses, some tolerable grass and a
fine water-hole, we were enabled to encamp. Mr. Roper and Charley, who
had kept a little more to the left, reported that they had been on one of
the heads of the Boyd, and had seen a fine open country to the westward,
and south-west. The "Boyd" was so named in acknowledgment of the liberal
support I had received from Benjamin Boyd, Esq.
Amongst the shrubs along the gullies, a new species of Dodonaea, with
pinnate pubescent leaves, was frequent. Towards evening we had a
thunderstorm from the westward.
Nov. 29. - In reconnoitring the country in the neighbourhood of the camp,
I ascended three mountains, and ascertained that there are five parallel
ranges, striking from north to south, of which the three easterly ones
send their waters to the eastward; whereas the two westerly ones send
theirs to the Boyd, the valley of which has a south-westerly direction.
To the north of the Boyd, there is a steep mountain barrier, striking
from east to west. All these ranges are composed of sandstone, with their
horizontal strata, some of which have a very fine grain. Impressions of
Calamites were observed in one of the gullies.
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