Our Bullocks Were Very Seriously Bogged In Crossing
One Of Them.
After passing this intricate meshwork of boggy channels, we
entered upon an immense plain, with patches of forest appearing here and
there in the distance.
It was well grassed, but its sandy patches were
covered with Salicornia. This plant abounded particularly where the plain
sloped into the system of salt-water creeks; the approaches of which were
scattered over with the raspberry-jam tree. A west-north-west and west
course led me constantly to salt water; and we saw a large expanse of it
in the distance, which Charley, to whose superior sight all deference was
paid, considered to be the sea. I passed some low stunted forest, in
which a small tree was observed, with stiff pinnate leaves and a round
fruit of the size of a small apple, with a rough stone, and a very
nauseous rind, at least in its unripe state. To the westward of this belt
of forest, we crossed extensive marshes covered with tender, though dry
grass, and surrounded by low Ironstone ridges, openly timbered with
stunted silver-leaved Ironbark, several white gums, and Hakea lorea, R.
Br. in full blossom. We had not seen the latter for a long time, although
Grevillea mimosoides, with which it was generally associated, had been
our constant companion.
Beyond the ridges, we came again on salt-water creeks, and saw sheets of
sand, which looked like the sea from the distance. I turned to the south
and even south-east; and, finding no water, we were compelled to encamp
without it, after a very long and fatiguing stage.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 334 of 524
Words from 89852 to 90124
of 141354
