The country was very thick and
brushy, and he was much impeded by creeping vines.
Mr. Cunningham here planted the seeds of quinces, and the stones of
peach and apricot trees.
May 31. - Fine weather as usual, and at nine o'clock we set off with
renewed hopes and spirits. Our first nine miles afforded excellent
travelling through an open country of very indifferent soil. The trees
thin and chiefly cypress, with occasionally a large sterculia, but no
water whatever: at the ninth mile we entered a very thick eucalyptus
brush, overrun with creepers and prickly acacia bushes. We continued
forcing our way through this desert until sunset, when, finding no hopes
of getting through it before dark, we halted in the midst of it, having
travelled in the whole nearly twenty miles, and for the last mile been
obliged to cut our way with our tomahawks.
Both men and horses were quite knocked up, and our embarrassment was
heightened by the want of water for ourselves and them, as this desert
did not hold out the slightest hope of finding any. No herbage of any
kind grew on this abandoned plain, being a fine red sand, which almost
blinded us with its dust. It was with some little hesitation that we
affixed a name to this brush; but at length nothing occurred to us more
expressive of its aspect than EURYALEAN.
