The Weather Is Very Fair; The Regular Westerly Breeze,
During The Day, Is Setting In Again:
The dew is very abundant during
clear nights:
The morning very cold; the water of the lagoon 8 degrees to
10 degrees warmer than the air.
We have regularly balanced our loads, and made up every bag of flour to
the weight of 120 pounds: of these we have eight, which are to be carried
by four bullocks. The chocolate and the gelatine are very acceptable at
present, as so little animal food can be obtained. The country continues
to be extremely boggy, though the weather has been fine, with high winds,
for the last four days. Tracks of Blackfellows have been seen; but they
appear rare and scattered in this part of the country. Though we meet
with no game, tracks of kangaroos are very numerous, and they frequently
indicate animals of great size. Emus have been seen twice.
Thermometer at sunset 65 degrees 7 minutes (75 degrees in the water); at
a quarter past one, 90 degrees. South-westerly winds.
Oct. 19. - During the night, north-easterly breeze; at the break of day, a
perfect calm; after sunset easterly winds again. Thermometer at sunrise
51 degrees (60 degrees in the water); a cloudless sky. Mr. Hodgson and
Charley, whom I had sent to seek John and Caleb, returned to the camp
with a kangaroo. I sent them immediately off again, with Mr. Roper, to
find the two unfortunate people, whose absence gave me the greatest
anxiety. Mr. Roper and Mr. Gilbert had brought one pigeon and one duck,
as a day's sport; which, with the kangaroo, gave us a good and desirable
supper of animal food. During the evening and the night, a short
bellowing noise was heard, made probably by kangaroos, of which Mr.
Gilbert stated he had seen specimens standing nine feet high. Brown
brought a carpet snake, and a brown snake with yellow belly. The flies
become very numerous, but the mosquitoes are very rare.
On a botanical excursion I found a new Loranthus, with flat linear
leaves, on Casuarina, a new species of Scaevola, Buttneria, and three
species of Solanum. Mr. Hodgson brought a shrubby Goodenia; another
species with linear leaves, and with very small yellow blossoms, growing
on moist places in the forest; two shrubby Compositae; three different
species of Dodonaea, entering into fruit; and a Stenochilus, R. Br. with
red blossoms, the most common little shrub of the forest.
Mr. Gilbert brought me a piece of coal from the crossing place of the
creek of the 10th October. It belongs probably to the same layer which is
found at Flagstone Creek, on Mr. Leslie's station, on Darling Downs. We
find coal at the eastern side of the Coast Range, from Illawarra up to
Wide Bay, with sandstone; and it seems that it likewise extends to the
westward of the Coast Range, being found, to my knowledge, at Liverpool
Plains, at Darling Downs, and at Charley's Creek, of the 10th Oct. It is
here, as well as at the east side, connected with sandstone. Flint
pebbles, of a red colour, were very abundant at Charley's Creek, and in
the scrub, which I called the Flourspill, as it had made such a heavy
inroad into our flour-bags. The flat on which we encamp, is composed of a
mild clay, which rapidly absorbs the rain and changes into mud; a layer
of stiff clay is about one foot below the surface. The grasses are at
present in full ear, and often four feet high; but the tufts are distant,
very different from the dense sward at the other side of the Range. As we
left the Myal country of the Condamine, we left also its herbage,
abounding in composite, leguminous, and chenopodiaceous plants, with a
great variety of grasses.
Oct. 20. - This morning, at half-past nine o'clock, Messrs. Roper,
Hodgson, and Charley, returned with John Murphy and Caleb. They had
strayed about twelve miles from the camp, and had fairly lost themselves.
Their trackers had to ride over seventy miles, before they came up to
them, and they would certainly have perished, had not Charley been able
to track them: it was indeed a providential circumstance that he had not
left us. According to their statement, the country is very open, with a
fine large creek, which flows down to the Condamine; this is the creek
which we passed on the 10th Oct., and which I called "Charley's Creek."
The creek first seen by Mr. Hodgson joins this, and we are consequently
still on westerly waters.
Thermometer, at sunrise, 54 degrees (in the water 64 degrees); at eight
o'clock 64 degrees. Strong easterly and northerly winds during the last
two nights. It becomes calm at a quarter past three, with the rise of
Venus.
Mr. Calvert brought an edible mushroom out of Flourspill Scrub.
The Loranthus of the Myal grows also on other Acacias with glaucous
leaves. A bright yellow everlasting is very fine and frequent.
Oct. 22. - I left Kent's lagoon yesterday. In order to skirt the scrub, I
had to keep to the north-east, which direction brought me, after about
three miles travelling through open forest, to Mr. Hodgson's creek, at
which John Murphy and Caleb had been lost. The creek here consists of a
close chain of fine rocky water-holes; the rock is principally clay,
resembling very much a decomposed igneous rock, but full of nodules and
veins of iron-stone. I now turned to the northward, and encamped at the
upper part of the creek. To-day I took my old course to the north-west,
and passed a scrubby Ironbark forest, and flat openly-timbered forest
land. I came again, however, to a Bricklow scrub, which I skirted, and
after having crossed a very dense scrubby Ironbark forest, came to a
chain of rushy water-holes, with the fall of the waters to the
north-east. The whole drainage of a north-easterly basin, seems to have
its outlet, through Charley's Creek, into the Condamine.
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