We Found Shells Of Cymbium And
Cytherea, An Enormous Waddie, Which Could Have Been Wielded Only By A
Powerful Arm, Nets And Various Instruments For Fishing, In Their Deserted
Camp.
August 7.
- I thought it advisable to stop here, and give our meat a fair
drying. The natives were not seen again. Charley and John took a ride to
procure some game, and came to a salt-water creek, which joined the river
about three miles from our camp; the river flowed in a very winding
course from the eastward. They found some good fresh water-holes, at the
head of the salt-water.
August 8. - We travelled about seven miles E.S.E. over plains and Ironbark
ridges. The approaches of the creek, broken by watercourses and gullies,
were covered with thickets of raspberry-jam trees. The rock cropped out
frequently in the creek, which was said to be very rocky lower down. The
salt-water Hibiscus, a species of Paritium, Adr. Juss. (Hibiscus
tiliaceus? Linn. D.C. Prodr. I. p. 454) grew round the water-holes. We
found the same little tree at the salt-water rivers on the west coast of
the gulf, and at Port Essington. I had formerly seen it at the sea coast
of Moreton Bay; its bark is tough and fibrous, and the heart-wood is
brown with a velvety lustre.
August 9. - When Charley returned with the horses, he told us, that, when
he was sitting down to drink at a water-hole about three miles up the
creek, ten emus came to the other side of the water; keeping himself
quiet, he took a careful aim, and shot one dead; then mounting his horse
immediately, he pursued the others, and approaching them very near,
succeeded in shooting another.
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