Noble Trees Of The Flooded-Gum Grew Along The Banks Of The
Creeks, And Around The Hollows, Depending Rather Upon Moisture, Than Upon
The Nature Of The Soil.
Fine Casuarinas were occasionally met with along
the creeks; and the forest oak (Casuarina torulosa), together with
rusty-gum, were frequent on the sandy ridges.
One should have expected that the prevailing winds during the day, would
have been from the south-east, corresponding to the south-east trade
winds; but, throughout the whole journey from Moreton Bay to the Isaacs,
I experienced, with but few exceptions, during the day, a cooling breeze
from the north and north-east. The thunder-storms came principally from
the south-west, west, and north-west; but generally showed an inclination
to veer round to the northward.
From Coxen's Range I returned to the river, and soon reached the place
where I had met the Black-fellows. In passing out of the belt of scrub
into the openly timbered grassy flat of the river, Brown descried a
kangaroo sitting in the shade of a large Bastard-box tree; it seemed to
be so oppressed by the heat of the noonday sun as to take little notice
of us, so that Brown was enabled to approach sufficiently near to shoot
it. It proved to be a fine doe, with a young one; we cooked the latter
for our dinner, and I sent Brown to the camp with the dam, where my
companions most joyfully received him; for all our dried meat was by this
time consumed, and all they had for supper and breakfast, were a
straw-coloured ibis, a duck, and a crow. As Mr. Gilbert and myself were
following the course of the river, we saw numerous tracks of
Blackfellows, of native dogs, of emus, and kangaroos, in its sandy bed;
and, when within a short distance of the place where I had seen the black
women, loud cries of cockatoos attracted our notice; and, on going in
their direction, we came to a water-hole in the bed of the river, at its
junction with a large oak tree creek coming from the northward. This
water-hole is in latitude 22 degrees 11 minutes; the natives had fenced
it round with branches to prevent the sand from filling it up, and had
dug small wells near it, evidently to obtain a purer and cooler water, by
filtration through the sand. Pigeons (Geophapsscripta, GOULD.) had formed
a beaten track to its edge; and, the next morning, whilst enjoying our
breakfast under the shade of a gigantic flooded-gum tree, we were highly
amused to see a flight of fifty or more partridge pigeons tripping along
the sandy bed of the river, and descending to the water's edge, and
returning after quenching their thirst, quite unconscious of the
dangerous proximity of hungry ornithophagi. The cockatoos, however,
observed us, and seemed to dispute our occupation of their waters, by
hovering above the tops of the highest trees, and making the air resound
with their screams; whilst numerous crows, attracted by a neighbouring
bush fire, watched us more familiarly, and the dollar bird passed with
its arrow-like flight from shade to shade.
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