A Fishing Weir Crossed The
Stream, Where It Was About Twenty Yards Broad, And From Two To Three Feet
Deep.
We were occupied to a late hour of the night in cutting up our
emus.
I had intended to stop the next day, but, as our camp in the bed of
the river was surrounded by a thick underwood; as the dew was very heavy,
the water brackish, and the young feed dangerous for our cattle, which
had fed so long on dry grass, I thought it prudent to continue my
journey. The longitude of this river, according to my daily distances,
was 137 degrees 5 minutes.
Sept. 15. - We travelled about fifteen miles N. 25 degrees W., passing for
the first eight miles over a very fine available country, but without
meeting with water, or even with a watercourse. Beyond that, however, the
country became more undulating, and we crossed, for about four miles, a
most wretched sandstone scrub. Here we saw some natives, but they avoided
us. The scrub opened upon fine box flats, with numerous shallow
watercourses; farther on, they were interrupted by scrubby or thickly
timbered elevations, on which we met with some Cycas palms from thirty to
fifty feet high, thick at the butt, and tapering gradually towards the
crown. At one of the shallow creeks, which suddenly became rocky, and
probably formed falls and rapids in the wet season, we struck upon a well
beaten foot-path of the natives, which led us through Cypress pine
thickets, and over open lawns to a creek, whose right bank was covered
with Cycas groves of the most strikingly picturesque appearance; and here
I observed that the Cycas, although it generally has a simple stem,
frequently grew with two or three arms.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 389 of 524
Words from 104781 to 105075
of 141354
