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We left the depot near Streaky Bay, at a course nearly due east, and passing through alternations of brush and of open grassy plains, upon the skirts of which grew a few casuarinae; halted after a stage of eighteen miles, at an opening in the brush, where we had good grass, but no water; we were consequently obliged to watch the horses during the night, to prevent their straying.
I had intended to make a short stage to-day to a spring, situated in the midst of a swamp, in latitude 33 degrees 46 minutes 35 seconds S., but having kept rather too far away from the coast, I missed it, and had to push on for twenty-three miles to a rich and very pretty valley, under a grassy range, lightly wooded with casuarinae.
In the ground beyond the plains some casuarinae and eucalypti are occasionally seen in the scrubs which grow on the red sand, and an acacia with a white stem and spotted bark there grows to a considerable size, and produces much gum. Indeed gum acacia abounds in these scrubs, and when the country is more accessible may become an article of commerce.
The soil at a distance from the stream was by no means so good as that in its immediate vicinity, nor was the timber of the same description. On the rich and picturesque grounds near the river the angophora prevailed with the flooded gum, and the scenery upon its banks was improved by the casuarinae that overhung them. On the latter, inferior eucalypti and cypresses were mixed together.
We have seen no trees or timber of any kind of larger growth than the scrub, nor have we met with the Casuarinae since we left Streaky Bay.
We then descended to a level sandy region, clothed with small brush, and having very many salt lakes scattered over its surface; around the hollows in which these waters were collected, and occasionally around basins that were now dry, we found large trees of the gum, together with a few casuarinae. A very similar kind of low country appeared to extend far to the eastward and north-west.
Upon the banks of the river were a few casuarinae and more of the tea-tree, and bastard gum, than we had seen before upon any other watercourse.
The neighbourhood of the creek was well clothed with vegetation, and the cattle found good feed; but the only trees near it were rough-gum and casuarinae; the flooded-gum had again disappeared. The soil of the forest land over which we journeyed was a light sandy loam; and its timber consisted chiefly of eucalypti, acacia pendula, and the angophora.
They were tastefully distributed amongst drooping acacias and casuarinae; some resembled bowers under yellow fragrant mimosae; some were isolated under the deeper shades of casuarinae; while others were placed more socially, three or four together, fronting to one and the same hearth.
A few casuarinae were observed in parts of the valley, being the first met with since those seen near Cape Arid. July 2. Our route to-day lay through a country much covered with gum-scrub, banksias, and other shrubs, besides occasionally a few patches of stunted gum-trees growing in clumps in small hollows, where water appeared to lodge after rains.
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