The
River Has A Broad Bed, At Times Dividing Into Several Channels, Lined
With Stately Melaleucas And Flooded-Gum, And Again Uniting Into One Deep
Channel, With Long Reaches Of Water Surrounded By Polygonums, And
Overgrown With Blue Nymphaeas, Damasoniums, And Utricularias, And
Inhabited By Large Flights Of Ducks.
Rock occasionally enters into the
bed of the river.
The collateral lines of water-holes are rarely
interrupted, and the ridges appear to be open on both sides of the river.
March 26. - We travelled along the river to lat. 20 degrees 53 minutes 42
seconds. Its course is almost due north. Yesterday, being out duck
shooting, we came suddenly upon a camp of natives, who were not a little
frightened by the report of our guns: they followed our tracks, however,
with wailing cries, and afterwards all of them sat down on the rocky
banks of the river, when we returned to our camp. To-day we passed the
place of their encampment with our whole train, and it was remarkable
that they neither heard nor saw us until we were close to them, though we
had seen them from a great distance. All the young ones ran away.
Dismounting from my horse, I walked up to an old man who had remained,
and who was soon after rejoined by another man. We had a long
unintelligible conversation, for neither Brown nor Charley could make out
a single word of their language. They were much surprised by the
different appearance of Charley's black skin and my own. Phillips wished
to exchange his jacket for one of their opossum cloaks, so I desired him
to put it on the ground, and then taking the cloak and placing it near
the jacket, I pointed to Phillips, and, taking both articles up, handed
the cloak to Phillips and the jacket to our old friend, who perfectly
understood my meaning. After some time he expressed a wish to have the
cloak back, and to keep the jacket, with which we had dressed him; but I
gave him to understand that he might have his cloak, provided he returned
the jacket; which arrangement satisfied him. A basket (dilli), which I
examined, was made of a species of grass which, according to Charley, is
found only on the sea coast.
We saw a Tabiroo (Mycteria) and a rifle bird. The morning was cloudy, but
very hot. Numerous heavy cumuli formed during the afternoon.
March 27. - We travelled to lat. 20 degrees 47 minutes 34 seconds. The
country along the river is undulating and hilly, and openly timbered. The
rock is of sandstone, and the ground is covered with quartz pebbles. In
lat. about 20 degrees 49 minutes, the Suttor is joined by a river as
large as itself, coming from the S.W. by W., and which changes the course
of the Suttor to the N.E. Just before the junction, the large bed of the
Suttor contracts into one deep channel, filled in its whole extent by a
fine sheet of water, on which Charley shot a pelican.
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