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The hills as well as the valleys were generally covered with good grass, excepting in the scrub. On some of the hills the rocks were shivered into irregular pieces, and displayed crystals of quartz, small laminae of mica, and occasionally hornblende. This evening we camped by the side of a fine casuarina creek, coming from the north-east.
When Baudin bade an affectionate and grateful farewell to Governor King at Sydney on November 18, he sailed direct to King Island, which is situated in Bass Strait, on the 40th parallel of south latitude, about midway between the south-east of Cape Otway and the north-west corner of Tasmania. Le Geographe was accompanied by Le Naturaliste and the little Casuarina.
As we passed by, I noticed a solitary desert oak-tree, Casuarina decaisneana, and a number of the Australian grass-trees, Xanthorrhoea. The country was almost destitute of timber, except that upon the tops of the parallel lines of red sandhills, which mostly ran in a north-east and south-west direction, a few stunted specimens of the eucalypt, known as blood-wood or red gum existed.
Having no further object in continuing a northerly course, we turned to the S.E., and, after again passing the creek, struck away for the camp on a S. by W. course, and passed through a dense brush of cypress and casuarina in our way to it.
The Morumbidgee itself, with an increased breadth, averaging from seventy to eighty yards, presents a still, deep sheet of water to the view, over which the casuarina bends with all the grace of the willow, or the birch, but with more sombre foliage.
The general direction of hills appeared to be 318 degrees from north; that of the continuation westward of the flat higher land, North 343 degrees. Accordingly we travelled until night overtook us in an extensive casuarina scrub, where we tied our horses, and made our fire, after a ride of at least 40 miles.
The next morning, after taking three hours to water our horses, we started on the bearing of the high mount, which could not be seen from the low ground, the bearing being south 18 degrees west. We got clear of the low hills of the glen, and almost immediately entered thick scrubs, varied by high sandhills, with casuarina and triodia on them.
This gives the country the appearance of dry grassy downs; and as it is dotted here and there with casuarina and blood-wood-trees, and small patches of desert shrubs, its general appearance is by no means displeasing to the eye, though frightful to the touch. No sign of the recent presence of natives was anywhere visible, nor had the triodia been burnt for probably many years.
On my return to the Blue Mountains, and on a closer examination of the streams falling from them into the interior, I observed that at a certain point, and that too nearly on the same meridian, they lost their character as rivers, and soon after gaining the level interior, terminated in marshes of greater or less extent; and I further remarked that at certain points, and that too where the channels of the rivers seemed to change, certain trees, as the swamp oak, casuarina, and others ceased, or were sparingly to be found on the lower country a fact that may not be of any great importance in itself, but which it is still as well to record.
As the creek was leading northerly, we traced it down on that course for about seven miles, and then halted upon its banks, which were composed of a light tenacious earth. Brushes of casuarina existed near it, but a tortuous box was the prevailing tree, which, excepting for the knees of small vessels, could not have been applied to any use, while the flooded-gum had entirely disappeared.
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