We Passed A Small Scrubby Creek, And A Long Tract Of
Stringy-Bark Forest, Mixed With Bloodwood And Pandanus, And Patches Of
Cypress Pine.
Here we again observed the gum-tree with orange blossoms
and large ribbed seed-vessels, which we found at the upper Lynd, and had
called Melaleuca gum.
Sterculia was frequent, and we collected a great
quantity of its ripe seeds. We passed several dry swamps, surrounded with
tea-tree thickets, and heaps of fresh water mussel shells. A rich
iron-stone rock cropped out frequently; its surface had the appearance of
having been netted.
In a tract of broad-leaved tea-tree forest, we came to a watercourse,
which led us to a fine creek surrounded with Pandanus and drooping
tea-trees, and containing a chain of deep water-holes in its bed. Its
course was from west to east.
Sept. 20. - We removed our camp to the creek I had found last night, about
nine miles north-west from the Robinson. On our way, we saw two flocks of
emus, and Spring caught one of the birds. According to Charley, who is a
native of Bathurst, the emus of this part of the country are much smaller
than those of his country, which frequently yield from two to three
gallons of oil; but very few of the gulf emus contained fat enough to fry
their own liver; and their skin was as dry as that of the native dog. A
similar difference has been observed in the bustard, which, at the gulf,
rarely weighed more than three pounds and a half; whereas individuals of
twenty and twenty-eight pounds weight have been shot to the southward.
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