Upon His Showing It To Me, I Thought
That It Was Caused By The Sterculia Prickles Having Irritated The Skin,
And Rendered It More Sensitive To The Sharp Properties Of The Exudation
Of The Seed-Vessels Of Grevillea.
Brown, however, merely touched the skin
of his arm with the matter, when blisters immediately rose; showing
clearly its properties.
The discoloration of the skin was like the
effects of nitrate of silver.
Sept. 24. - When Charley returned with the horses from a higher part of
the river, he told us that he had seen so many wallabies and such
numerous tracks of emus and crocodiles, that I sent John and Brown to
procure some game. They returned with only a red wallabi (Halmaturus
agilis) and a spoonbill. According to their account, the river enlarged
into an immense sandy bed, like that of the Lynd, and was covered with
trees and shrubs, very much resembling those of that river. Its course
was from the westward; and in that direction large plains extended. They
had seen three crocodiles, one of which lay in the shade of a
Sarcocephalus tree. The bean of the Mackenzie grew plentifully along the
river, and was covered with ripe seeds. In the morning of the 25th, I
sent John and Brown to collect as many of them as they could, for coffee;
whilst I and Charley went to reconnoitre the country for water. A W.N.W.
course brought us so much into sandstone ranges, gullies, and heads of
creeks, that we turned to the northward, until we came again into the
open box and tea-tree forest, mixed with bloodwood and gum. About four
miles from the camp, we found water-holes supplied by springs, and which
had just been left by the natives, who were busy in burning the grass
along the ridges, and on the fine intervening flats. It was here that I
again met with a species of Banksia, on the sandy flats immediately below
the sandstone ranges, which was either a variety of B. integrifolia, or a
species very nearly allied to it. We found it afterwards all over
Arnheim's Land, especially on the table land and on the rocky heads of
the South Alligator River, where it grew on sandy flats surrounding the
rocks, and particularly round sandy swamps. The Cypress-pine and Pandanus
were frequent, but Sterculia was rare. We remarked that the little
finches generally anticipated us in the harvest of the ripe fruit of the
latter. About eight miles from the springs, after crossing a great number
of small dry sandy watercourses, we came to a fine creek with two large
Nymphaea ponds.
On our return, we ran down an emu, the stomach of which was full of the
fruit of the little Severn tree. The meat of the whole body was so
exceedingly bitter, that I could scarcely eat it. Brown and John had
returned with a good supply of beans, and of the large eatable roots of a
Convolvolus growing on the plains.
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