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After proceeding about two and a half miles, we got into a scrubby part of the hills, through which we found it difficult to push our way, the scrub being eucalyptus dumosa, an unusual tree to find in those hills.

As the watercourse approached the Broughton the country became much more abrupt and broken, and after its junction with that river, the stream wound through a succession of barren and precipitous hills, for about fifteen miles, at a general course of south-west; these hills were overrun almost everywhere with prickly grass and had patches of the Eucalyptus dumosa scattered over them at intervals.

One part for about three miles is subject to inundation, and the Eucalyptus Dumosa grows thickly on it. We then passed over about two miles of spinifex and grass, and again entered the grassy plain, which continued to Hunter Creek. During the whole day we have not seen the shadow of a creek or watercourse.

From this it would appear that the face of the country in those low level regions, occupied by the Eucalyptus dumosa, is gradually undergoing a process which is changing it for the better, and in the course of centuries perhaps those parts of Australia which are now barren and worthless, may become rich and fertile districts, for as soon as the scrub is removed grass appears to spring up spontaneously.

This singular feature is a broad line of wood, composed in the lower part of Eucalyptus dumosa, a straggling tree, growing to an inconsiderable height, rising at once from the ground with many slender stems, and affording but an imperfect shade. About the latitude of 34 degrees the character of the Murray belt changes it becomes denser and more diversified.

After getting nearly half round the lake, our progress was impeded by a dense and most difficult scrub of the Eucalyptus dumosa.

After descending from the rises, we crossed a wooded plain, subject to inundation; no water. The trees are very thick indeed they are the eucalyptus, the Eucalyptus Dumosa, the small-leaved tree, another small-leaved tree much resembling the hawthorn, spreading out into many branches from the root; it rises to upwards of twenty feet in height.

"But how, in the name of all that is wonderful, came you to discover the danger of the pettish Baronet and his far more deserving daughter?" "I saw them from the verge of the precipice." "From the verge! umph And what possessed you dumosa pendere procul de rupe? though dumosa is not the appropriate epithet what the deil, man, tempted ye to the verge of the craig?"

In traversing the country along the coast from Streaky Bay to the limits of our present exploration, within twelve miles of the head of the Great Bight, we have found the country of a very uniform description low flat lands, or a succession of sandy ridges, densely covered with a brush of EUCALYPTUS DUMOSA, salt water tea-tree, and other shrubs whilst here and there appear a few isolated patches of open grassy plains, scattered at intervals among the scrub.

It was of course still covered with scrubs, which consisted here, as all over this region, mostly of the Eucalyptus dumosa, or mallee-trees, of a very stunted habit; occasionally some patches of black oaks as we call them, properly casuarinas, with clumps of mulga in the hollows, here and there a stunted cypress pine, callitris, some prickly hakea bushes, and an occasional so called native poplar, Codonocarpus cotinifolius, a brother or sister tree to the poisonous Gyrostemon.