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Updated: May 20, 2025
We travelled about eighteen miles N. N. W. over an undulating country, in which Cypress-pine thickets alternated with scrubby stringy-bark forest, and some tea-tree flats. After seven miles, we crossed a large dry creek, which went to the eastward; and, eight miles further, we entered upon a fine box-flat, with hills to the north and north-west. Mr.
The stringy-bark and the drooping tea-tree were the only useful timber near the settlement. On the Vollir, we came on a cart road which wound round the foot of a high hill; and, having passed the garden, with its fine Cocoa-nut palms, the white houses, and a row of snug thatched cottages burst suddenly upon us; the house of the Commandant being to the right and separate from the rest.
To the westward of this creek, box flats alternated with tea-tree thickets; and opened at last into a large plain, which we crossed at its southern termination, where it was three miles broad; it appeared boundless to the northward. Plains of the same character had been dimly seen through the open forest to the northward, for some time before we came to the one we crossed.
I therefore armed myself with a gun charged with buckshot, and went to meet the animals by moonlight. I lay in ambush among the tussocks. One shot was enough for each hog; after receiving it he retired hastily into the tea-tree and never came out again.
Its course is extremely winding, whilst the numberless creeks and gulleys which join it, all with scrubby banks, make travelling along its banks, a work of great labor and difficulty. The country on this day's march slightly improved, being more open and better grassed, the best being on the river banks, but coarse and sparse at best. The timber chiefly bloodwood and black tea-tree.
I am not aware of the season in which Capt. Stokes explored this part of the country; but it must not be forgotten, that the same causes which would produce cold winds in the winter, might be the cause of hot winds in the summer. August 27. We travelled about seventeen miles N. N. W. to lat. 17 degrees 11 minutes 9 seconds, through an uninterrupted scrub and broad-leaved tea-tree forest.
They were made by placing saplings in the ground in a slanting position, which were tied together at the top and woven inside like wickerwork, with strips of small bamboo canes. The whole was then covered with palm leaves, over which was a coating of tea-tree bark, very neatly fastened by strips of cane. They were substantially built, and would no doubt keep out the wet effectually.
Wharfs and stores fronted the banks of the Yarra-yarra; whilst further down, tanners and soap-boilers had established themselves on either side, where, formerly, had been tea-tree thickets, from which the cheerful pipe of the bell-bird greeted the visitor.
The camphor-tree the Laurus camphora is another very fine tree, with red and black berries. The camphor comes from it in white fragrant drops, which, when they harden, require but slight purifying to give them the appearance which the camphor we see in England presents. Everywhere we met with the tea-tree or tea-plant. It is as common in Japan as our privet or hawthorn.
After taking some refreshment, I walked to a rise about three miles off at N. 40 degrees E. from which I took several bearings, and among them I set Mount Deception at N. 25 degrees W., I then examined several of the gorges between the front hills, where the banks were broken away, and to my great dismay found in all of them salt mixed with the sand, the clay, and even the rocks; whilst in the bed of the watercourse, the salt water tea-tree was making its appearance, a shrub I had never before seen under Flinders range, and one which never grows where the soil is not of a very saline nature, and generally only where the water is too brackish for use.
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