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Updated: May 11, 2025
Followed along it a few miles, when we bore more to the north; then in the direction of emu tracks, and passed along a fine grassy flat with hundreds of kangaroos in every direction; also many emu tracks. We were sure we were getting close to water. A little farther on saw about twenty-five emus, and soon reached a spring in the brook, and camped for dinner.
The noise is said to be very like an emu's cry, and this emu bugle will certainly, they say, draw towards it a gundooee, or solitary emu. The blacks used on the sandhills to make a deep hole to hide themselves in, usually only one though. From this hole they would run out a drain for about thirty yards.
An emu came very near our tents, and by carrying a bush a la Birnam we got several shots without however having the good fortune to hit it. We had the satisfaction to find that the ground was drying very fast. In the evening the mountains to the eastward were seen clearly for the first time.
I was much struck by the course of instruction adopted at the schools, where all the children under ten years of age assembled to learn the rudiments of Christianity, and reading and writing. Yet these people, we in England should call savages. Can we boast that the children of our poor are so well cared for? We could here gain no intelligence of the Emu, so we again sailed.
The emus had no intention of being caught, but they had the wind against them, which somewhat impeded their progress. Two, however, showed signs of flagging, and the dogs got up to them. It would have been better for them had they kept at a respectful distance, for the hindmost emu kicking out struck one of them on the chest, and sent it flying among its companions.
Yesterday morning the dogs caught an emu, off which we made a first-rate breakfast, not having had anything to eat since the previous morning. Barometer 28.44. 31st. Started this morning in company with Mr. Monger and Jemmy in search of natives, leaving Mr. Hamersley in charge, with instructions to proceed eastward about twenty-two miles, to where I found water on the 29th.
We had not long left the tree, when it fell with a tremendous crash, and was, when we next passed that way, a mere heap of ashes. Shortly before it commenced raining, the dogs started an emu, and took after it, followed by M'Leay and myself.
The course of the Hawkesbury above Emu plains presents a singular feature in forcing its way through a very steep-sided ravine, and thus cutting off a portion of the mountain mass after its channel has previously bordered on the lower country of Cumberland where no such obstruction is opposed to its waters, which might there pursue a more direct course to the sea.
Indeed, for a moment, when we reached the spot, I fancied I saw the glint of a fierce emu eye away in the dark leaves that hung by the bark of a mighty Eucalyptus, and I gave the cooee of the native, but no response came.
Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town. It was a primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on the cliff the Emu Point side overlooking the broad Leichardt River.
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