The Sameness Which Had So Wearied Us
During The Last Month Was Somewhat Relieved By The Various Rising
Hills And Low Ranges Which Were Scattered Over The Otherwise Level
Surface Of The Country.
A hill bearing N. 15 E. received the name
of Mount Torrens; it stood quite detached.
Two of the men, who were
about a mile ahead of the main party, fell in with a small native
family, consisting of a man, two women and three children, the
eldest about three years old. The man was very stout and tall; he
was armed with a jagged spear, and no friendly motions of the men (who
were totally unarmed) could induce him to lay it aside, or suffer them
to approach him: during the short time they were with him, he kept the
most watchful eye upon them; and when the men calling the dogs together
were about to depart, he threw down with apparent fierceness the little
bark guneah which had sheltered him and his family during the night, and
made towards the river, calling loudly and repeatedly, as if to bring
others to his assistance: he was quite naked, except the netted band
round the waist, in which were womerahs. The women were covered with
skins over their shoulders, and the two younger children were slung in
them on their backs.
There was a very considerable fresh in the stream, and its windings
to-day were singularly remarkable, insomuch that it was frequently taken
for two different rivers; necks of land near a mile long, but not one
hundred yards wide, being the only separation between several of the
reaches. At three o'clock we halted on its banks, having travelled
eleven miles and a half.
July 22. - The river had risen during the night upwards of a foot, and
was now about eight feet from the banks; its breadth from thirty to
fifty feet, whilst its apparent usual channel could not exceed from
fifteen to twenty. The calls of the natives were heard this morning on
the opposite side of the river. At nine o'clock we again proceeded up
the river, which to-day trended east by north. About four miles east
from our last station, we ascended a stony mount being near the
north-east extreme of Goulburn's Range: the country to the north-east
and round to east was without any eminences of magnitude, but several
rising chains of low hills were scattered over the general surface of
the country; they were mostly bare of trees, being stony and barren. It
is impossible to imagine a worse tract of country than that through
which our route lay this day; to the very edges of the stream, it was a
barren acacia scrub intermingled with cypresses and dwarf box-trees. The
flats were uniformly swampy, and covered with bushes (rhagodea); the
hills instead of grass were clothed with gnapthalium. We repeatedly saw
the river in our course, but I could find no eligible place to cross it,
as the trees which would have suited our purpose for bridges were now,
in consequence of the fresh or flood, in the very middle of the stream.
The banks where the rising grounds came immediately on the river were
high and of a red loamy clay, and when this was the case the opposite
banks were seen to be low in proportion:
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