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Updated: May 20, 2025
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.
The valley through which the river took its course, was rocky, with sheets of granite extending in many places to the water's edge. There was abundance of good grass, however, and in its upper branches, probably, there might have been some considerable extent of pasturage. The trees growing upon the margin, were the paper-barked tea-tree, and the bastard gum.
The night was clear and very dry. Dec. 10. We travelled about seven miles to the northward; but kept for the first three miles in a N.N.W. direction from our camp, when we came to a small plain, with a Mangrove creek going to the westward; scarcely two miles farther, we crossed a drooping tea-tree swamp, of which a Pandanus creek formed the outlet; and, two miles farther still, a large plain opened upon us, in which we saw a great number of natives occupied in burning the grass, and digging for roots.
The crops of the large cockatoos were filled with the young red shoots of the Haemodorum, which were almost as pungent as chillis, but more aromatic; the plant abounded on the sandy soil. The small cockatoo of the plains, which we saw again in great numbers, seems to feed on a white root and on the honey of the whole seed-vessel, or the flower-bud, of the drooping tea-tree.
In the camp, we observed Cycas seeds sliced and drying on the ground; and some Pandanus seeds soaking in large vessels; emu bones were lying in the ashes, and the feet of the emu were rolled up and concealed between the tea-tree bark of the hut. A small packet contained red ochre to colour their bodies, and larger packets contained soaked Cycas seeds, which seemed to be undergoing fermentation.
There is a quantity of reeds growing round them, also tea-tree. From this we followed the creek to the north, thence north-east towards the lake, but the water being too brackish, I returned to the springs, the natives walking with us all the time; they seemed very inoffensive.
Hence we travelled about north-west by west, towards a fine mountain range, which yesterday bore W. N. W. After six miles of undulating scrubby country, and broad-leaved tea-tree forest, we arrived at a creek with a fine pool of water, which, notwithstanding its Nymphaeas, Charas, and Typhas, was slightly brackish and bitter.
In the bed of the Van Diemen we saw some well constructed huts of the natives; they were made of branches arched over in the form of a bird-cage, and thatched with grass and the bark of the drooping tea-tree. The place where we encamped had been frequently used by the natives for the same purpose.
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.
Huge tea-trees stand in the water, where the fibrous roots are matted like peat. Out of the moist coolness the track abruptly ascends to a pleasant forest, and thence drops almost imperceptibly to tea-tree flats intersected by Pandanus creeks, which bulge here and there into sedge-margined lagoons.
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