This Is To Enable The Bird To Run Along Safely Over
The Floating Leaves Of The Lotus, On Which Plant It Seems To Get Its
Living.
I had never seen one before; and the simple manner in which Nature
had adapted it to its peculiar line of life struck me as both curious and
beautiful.
What this little bird's scientific name is I never heard, but
we colonists call it the "Lotus bird."
As there was a remote chance of the party left with the boats coming in
contact with the blacks, it was deemed advisable to leave them a trooper,
who would more readily recognise their whereabouts than the white men;
therefore a boy known by the not euphonious sobriquet of "Killjoy," was
selected to remain with the pilot and his two boatmen, and after dividing
the big meat damper in five equal portions, the exploring party, consisting
of Dunmore, Ferdinand, Larry, Lizzie and myself, struck out for the opening
in the scrub on the Mackay river. We descended into the sandy bed, and
crossed to the opposite side, which was much more open country, consisting
of park-like land, lightly timbered, but the soil not nearly so rich as the
fertile plain through which wound the Macalister. It would be tedious to
weary my readers with a minute account of our doings each day; enough to
say that we passed through new country of every description, crossing from
side to side of the Mackay, to cut off its many bends, and that our
progress was but slow, the distant ranges seeming hardly nearer on the
third day than they were at starting.
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