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At 12 a large well-watered creek was crossed, and the party camped at the end of 18 miles on a similar one. The general course N.N.W., and lay chiefly over very stony ridges, close to the river banks. The timber was chiefly box, iron-bark, and melaleuca, the latter growing in the shallow bed, in which also large granite boulders frequently occurred.
Our tents stood on ground high above the reach of flood. The soil was excellent, and the brushes behind us abounded with a new species of melaleuca. The heat of the weather, at this time, was extremely oppressive, and the thermometer was seldom under 100 degrees of Fahr. at noon.
Purtaboi, the first and the nearest of the satellites, lies three-quarters of a mile from the middle of the sweep of Brammo Bay always in view through the tracery of the melaleuca trees.
The stony rises are covered with stringy-bark, gum, and other trees, but not so tall and thick as on the table land and close to it, except in the creek, where it is very large; the melaleuca is also large. Since leaving the table land we have nearly lost the beautiful palms; there are still a few at this camp, but they are not growing so high; the cabbage palm is still in the creek and valleys.
The whole of these our friends threw on the fire without the delay of plucking, and snatched them from that consuming element ere they were well singed, and devoured them with uncommon relish. We pitched our tents upon a flat of good and tenacious soil. A brush, in which there was a new species of melaleuca, backed it, in the thickest part of which we found a deserted native village.
At noon we were at some distance from the creek, but then went towards it. The gum-trees were no longer visible, but melaleucas, from fifteen to twenty feet high, lined its banks like a copse of young birch. We now observed a long but somewhat narrow sheet of water, to which we rode; our suspicions as to its quality being roused by its colour, and the appearance of the melaleuca.
A Melaleuca with very small decussate leaves, a tree about twenty-five feet high, was growing on the scrubby ridges. Flooded-gums of most majestic size, and Casuarinas, grew along the river; in which there were many large reedy water-holes.
The sandy slopes around the swamps were covered with Banksia, the Melaleuca gum, and Pandanus, and a rich profusion of grasses and low sedges surrounded the deep pools of spring water. These spots, which bore the marks of being much visited by the natives, were like oases in the dry, dull, sandy forest, and formed delightful shady groves, pleasing to every sense.
The weather at starting was fine, but about 11 o'clock the rain commenced, and continued steadily the whole of the day. At night, on camping, a "bandicoot gunyah" was erected, and covered with the broad pliable paper bark of the melaleuca, which made a snug shelter for the night from the still pouring rain. Course generally N.W by W. Distance following the river, 21 miles. 'January' 31.
The whole of these our friends threw on the fire without the delay of plucking, and snatched them from that consuming element ere they were well singed, and devoured them with uncommon relish. We pitched our tents upon a flat of good and tenacious soil. A brush, in which there was a new species of melaleuca, backed it, in the thickest part of which we found a deserted native village.
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