"I Take the last opportunity of giving you an account of my progress. In eleven days we travelled from Mr. Burell's station, on the Condamine, to Mr. M'Pherson's, on the Fitzroy Downs. Though the country was occasionally very difficult, yet everything went on very well. My mules are in excellent order—my companions in excellent spirits. Three of my cattle are footsore, but I shall kill one of them to-night, to lay in our necessary stock of dried beef. The Fitzroy Downs, over which we travelled for about twenty-two miles from east to west, is indeed a splendid region, and Sir Thomas has not exaggerated their beauty in his account. The soil is pebbly and sound, richly grassed, and, to judge from the Myalls, of the most fattening quality. I came right on Mount Abundance, and passed over a gap in it with my whole train. My latitude agreed well with Mitchell's. I fear that the absence of water on Fitzroy Downs will render this fine country to a great extent unavailable. I observe the thermometer daily at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., which are the only convenient hours. I have tried the wet thermometer, but am afraid my observations will be very deficient. I shall, however, improve on them as I proceed.
"The only serious accident that has happened was the loss of a spade, but we are fortunate enough to make it up on this station. Though the days are still very hot, the beautiful clear nights are cool, and benumb the mosquitoes, which have ceased to trouble us. Myriads of flies are the only annoyance we have.
"Seeing how much I have been favoured in my present progress, I am full of hopes that our Almighty Protector will allow me to bring my darling scheme to a successful termination.
"Your most sincere friend,
"LUDWIG LEICHHARDT."
(See page 166.—Chapter VII.)
* * * * *
THE NARDOO PLANT.
The Nardoo appears generally to be considered the seed of the lentil, or some other plant of the bean tribe, whereas it belongs to one of those cryptogamic or flowerless plants, which, like ferns and mosses, do not produce perfect seeds, but are increased by cellular bodies named spores. It belongs to the genus MARSILLEA, order MARSILLEACEAE, and that class of sexual or flowerless plants called Acrogens, which have distinguishable stems and leaves, in contra-distinction to THALLOGENS, in which stems and leaves are indistinguishable, as sea-weeds, fungi, and lichens. The part used for food is the INVOLUCEN SPORANGIUM, or spore case, with its contained spores, which is of an oval shape, flattened, and about one-eighth of an inch in its longest diameter; hard and horny in texture, requiring considerable force to crush or pound it when dry, but becoming soft and mucila ginous when exposed to moisture. The natives pound it between two stones, and make it into cakes like flour. The spores vegetate in water, and root in soil at the bottom, where the plant grows to maturity. After the water dries up, the plants die, and leave the spore cases on, in many instances quite covering the surface of the dried mud. It is then that they are gathered for food. On the return of moisture, the spore cases softened, become mucilaginous, and discharge their contents to form a fresh crop of plants. The foliage is green, and resembles clover somewhat, being composed of three fleshy leaflets on the top of a stalk a few inches in length.
(See page 2166.—[Chapter IX.])