I Chose The Latter Direction,
And Passed Over Ironstone Ridges Covered With Stunted Silver-Leaved
Ironbark; And A Species Of Terminalia, A Small Tree, With Long Spathulate
Glaucous Leaves, Slightly Winged Seed-Vessels, And With An Abundance Of
Fine Transparent Eatable Gum; Of Which John And Brown Gathered A Great
Quantity.
Some of the ridges were openly timbered with a rather stunted
white-gum tree, and were well grassed; but
The grass was wiry and stiff.
At the end of our stage, about sixteen miles distant from our last camp,
we crossed some rusty-gum forest; and encamped at a fine water-hole in
the bed of a rocky creek, shaded by the white drooping gum, which seemed
to have taken the place of the flooded gum. Groves of Pandanus spiralis
grew along the creek, which ran to the north by east. All the small
watercourses we passed, inclined to the eastward. Charley found the shell
of a Cytherea on an old camping-place of the natives, which indicated our
approach to the salt water.
A native had carved a representation of the foot of an emu in the bark of
a gum-tree; and he had performed it with all the exactness of a good
observer. It was the first specimen of the fine arts we had witnessed in
our journey.
August 4. - We travelled about ten miles west-north-west, over scrubby
ridges, plains, and box-flats. In a patch of rusty-gum forest we found
Acacia equisetifolia, and the dwarf Grevillea of the upper Lynd in
blossom; the thyrsi of scarlet flowers of the latter were particularly
beautiful.
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