- As soon as it was light, our little canoe was launched; but
our hopes and expectations had been too
Sanguine as to her capability:
sufficiently strong and buoyant to contain one person, more was too much
for her; I therefore of necessity abandoned the design, and at half-past
nine o'clock again proceeded up the strewn. The fresh did not in
the least diminish, but I thought rather rose than fell. A line which
had last night been thrown into the stream, with little hope or
expectation of catching any thing, was found, when taken up this
morning, to have hooked a very fine fish. Since the flood we had almost
ceased to think of fish, as we never had the least success in our trials.
The river, as we had conjectured it would, trended this day again to the
north-east. The country passed over was low and nearly level. The points
and immediate banks were deeply flooded, forming extensive morasses, and
there were generally between them and the drier and more elevated land
deep serpentine lagoons, the water in which was clear and transparent,
it having been apparently a long time since that of the river had filled
them. The back land was a red sandy loam, very light, covered with
acacia bushes, spear-wood, and small cypresses; the only herbage, a
coarse tea-grass; and yet I do not think the kind of soil which appears
to be the universal one upon the drier lands, can be strictly called
barren: I have seen apparently much worse soils in a state of
cultivation. We crossed one or two large plains, clear of wood and even
bushes; the soil a stiff tenacious clay, which, though not flooded by
the river, retains all the water that falls upon it, there being no
descent or fall by which it can be conveyed to its natural drain, the
river. These plains were now dry and hard, and having been lately burnt,
the coarse natural herbage springing up fresh, gave them a pleasing
green appearance. One or two beautiful new shrubs in seed and flower
were found to-day, to the great satisfaction of the botanists, who had
not lately made many very splendid or valuable additions to their
collections.
A party of natives was seen on the opposite side of the river,
consisting of one man, two lads, and two women; they disappeared as soon
as they observed us.
The flood had swollen the stream to a considerable breadth; it was at
least sixty feet wide at the spot where we stopped, and was about six
feet below the banks.
July 28. - The waters in the stream continue stationary. There must
have been heavy rains to the eastward, to maintain at this height such
a body of water. As to the rains that fall westward of the Blue
Mountains, I am clearly of opinion, that they are in no way auxiliary in
forming this stream. The soil, the general level surface, without a
single water-course north or south, prove that all the waters which fall
are quickly absorbed; and I think it very probable that rain falls here
extremely seldom, and never simultaneously with the rain of the eastern
coast and mountains.
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