The Country Continued Open Forest Land For About Three Miles, The
Cypress And The Bastard Box Being The Prevailing Timber; Of The Former
Many Were Useful Trees.
We seemed neither ascending nor descending, but
travelling on somewhat of an elevated plain.
The broom-grass was very
luxuriant, being four or five feet high; the soil, as before, a light,
red, sandy loam. To this open tract succeeded three miles of barren
brush land, covered with clumps of small cypresses, iron barks, and
acacias; the slightest elevation or ascent was always stony, and in one
or two places large masses of granite rock were observed. We have
hitherto seen no other signs of this being an inhabited country than the
marks usually made by the natives in ascending the trees, and none of
these were very recent. It is probable that they may see us without
discovering themselves, as it is much more likely for us to pass
unobserved the little family of the wandering native, than that our
party, consisting of so many men and horses, not travelling together,
but sometimes separated a mile or two, should escape their sight,
quickened as it is by constant exercise in procuring their daily food.
At the end of the brush we came upon a large chain of ponds, the fall of
water in which being north, induced us to believe that the Macquarie
could not be far distant: we proceeded down them about a mile, when the
situation offering us all we could wish for, we halted for the night, it
being past two o'clock, determining to remain here to-morrow for the
sake of the horses.
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