Mr. Kennedy's tent was 8 feet long, by 6 feet, and 8 feet high, and in it were placed a compact table, constructed with joints so as to fold up, a light camp stool, his books and instruments. The two larger round tents were pyramidal in shape, seven feet in diameter at the least, and nine feet high. The small tent was six feet in diameter, and eight feet high.
Every man was then supplied with one pair of blankets, one cloak, a double-barrelled gun or carbine, a brace of pistols, cartridge box, small percussion-cap pouch, and six rounds of ammunition. The arrangement for preserving the safety of the camp from attack was, that every man, with the exception of Mr. Kennedy, should take his turn to watch through the night--two hours being the duration of each man's watch--the watch extending from 8 P.M. till 6 A.M. During the night the kangaroo-dogs were kept chained up, but the sheepdog was at large.
The position of this our first encampment was near the northern extremity of Rockingham Bay, being in latitude 17 degrees 58 minutes 10 seconds south, longitude 146 degrees 8 minutes east. The soil, where our cattle and sheep were feeding, was sandy and very wet. The land, from the beach to the scrub in the swamp beyond, was slightly undulating, and very thickly strewed with shells, principally bivalves.
On the morning of the 25th May, a party commenced landing the remainder of our stores; and it being a fine morning, I went out to collect specimens and seeds of any new and interesting plants I might find. On leaving the camp I proceeded through a small belt of scrub to the rocks on the north; the scrub was composed of the genera Flagellaria, Kennedya, Bambusa (bamboo), Smilax, Cissus, Mucuna, and various climbing plants unknown to me: the trees consisted principally of Eugenia, Anacardium, Castanospermum (Moreton Bay chestnut), a fine species of Sarcocephalus, and a large spreading tree belonging to the natural order Rutaceae, with ternate leaves, axillary panicles of white flowers, about the size of those of Boronia pinnata. At the edge of the rocks were some fine treeferns (Dicksonia) with the genera Xiphopteris, and Polypodium; also some beautiful epiphytal Orchideae; among others a beautiful Dendrobium (rock lily,) with the habit of D. speciosum, but of stronger growth, bearing long spikes of bright yellow flowers, the sepals spotted with rich purple. I found also another species with smaller leaves, and more slender habit, with spikes of dull green flowers, the column and tips of the sepals purple: and a very fine Cymbidium, much larger than C. suave, with brown blossoms, having a yellow column.
I proceeded along the edge of a mangrove swamp for a short distance, and entered a freshwater swamp about a mile from the beach, covered with very thick scrub, composed of large trees of the genus Melaleuca, running for the most part from forty to fifty feet high. Here also I first found a strong-growing climbing palm (Calamus australis) throwing up a number of shoots from its roots, many of them 100 feet long, and about the thickness of a man's finger, with long pinnatifid leaves, covered with sharp spines--and long tendrils growing out of the stem alternately with the leaves, many of them twenty feet long, covered with strong spines slightly curved downward, by which the shoots are supported in their rambling growth. They lay hold of the surrounding bushes and branches of trees, often covering the tops of the tallest, and turning in all directions. The seed is a small hard nut, with a thin scaly covering, and is produced in great abundance.
The shoots, which are remarkably tough, I afterwards found were used by the natives in making their canoes. These canoes are small, and constructed of bark, with a small sapling on each side to strengthen them, the ends of which are tied together with these shoots.
The growth of this plant forms one of the greatest obstacles to travelling in the bush in this district. It forms a dense thicket, into which it is impossible to penetrate without first cutting it away, and a person once entangled in its long tendrils has much difficulty in extricating himself, as they lay hold of everything they touch. On entering the swamp to examine plants, I was caught by them, and became so much entangled before I was aware of it, that it took me nearly an hour to get clear, although I had entered but a few yards. No sooner did I cut one tendril, than two or three others clung around me at the first attempt to move, and where they once clasp they are very difficult to unloose. Abundance of the shoots, from fifteen to twenty feet long, free from leaves or tendrils, could be obtained, and would be useful for all the purposes to which the common cane is now applied.
At this spot also I met with Dracontium polyphyllum, a beautiful plant, belonging to the natural order Aroideae, climbing by its rooting stems to the tops of the trees, like the common ivy. This plant has narrow pointed leaves, four inches long, and produces at the ends of the shoots a red spatha, enclosing a cylindrical spadix of yellow flowers.
In many parts the swamp was completely covered with a very strong-growing species of Restio (rope-grass). On the open ground, between the beach and the swamp, were a few large flooded-gums, and a few Moreton Bay ash trees, and near the beach I found the Exocarpus latifolia.
On the beach, too, just above high-water mark, was a beautiful spreading, lactescent tree, about twenty feet high, belonging to the natural order Apocyneae, with alternate, exstipulate, broad, lanceolate leaves, six to eight inches long, and producing terminal spikes of large, white, sweet-scented flowers, resembling those of the white Nerium oleander, but much larger. I also met with a tree about twenty feet high belonging to the natural order Dilleniaceae, with large spreading branches, producing at the axilla of the leaves from three to five large yellow flowers, with a row of red appendages surrounding the carpels, and a fine species of Calophyllum, with large dark green leaves, six to eight inches long, two and a half to three inches broad, beautifully veined, and with axillary racemes of white, sweet-scented flowers; the seed being a large round nut with a thin rind, of a yellowish-green colour when ripe. There were many other interesting plants growing about, but the afternoon turning out wet, I left their examination to stand over till finer weather.