July 24.
We resumed our journey through the same description of country, cutting through scrub, and occasionally travelling through open land, timbered principally with Moreton Bay ash, box, and flooded-gum, and covered with very long grass. We crossed two creeks running to the northward, on the side of the last of which we camped. We were here compelled to shoot one of our horses, which had fallen lame. During the week we had made very little progress, being forced to turn in every direction to avoid the deep gulleys, and the scrub which invariably prevailed in the bends of the creeks. A tribe of natives visited us at this camp, and appeared very friendly; they did not stop with us long. I saw to-day several trees of the white-apple, as we called it, and which I have before described.
July 25.
We entered the scrub on the side of the creek, and proceeded along its banks with difficulty, being obliged to cut our way through, but it grew less dense after we had skirted the creek a short distance. We found the creek to be the branch of a river, which here divided, one branch running to the south-east (by which we had camped yesterday)the other running east. It is rocky, and shallow where it divides, but grows deeper in its course towards the coast. It is about two hundred yards wide, and its banks are overhung with trees on each side. After following it about a mile up, it grew much more shallow and narrow, and had a rocky bottom.
On the opposite side were patches of open forest ground, but they did not extend to any distance. After skirting the river about three miles, we crossed it in a shallow place, the bed of it being composed of blocks of water-worn granite. The impediment offered by these blocks rendered it very difficult for our horses to pass, although the water was only from one to three feet deep. Several of the horses fell in crossing this river; the one carrying my specimens fell three times, and my specimens and seeds received much damage, if they were not entirely spoiled.
The river here runs from the north-west. We crossed it and entered the scrub, but not being able to get through it before dark, we tied our horses to trees, and slept by them all night.
July 27.
We were cutting through scrub nearly all day, and having recrossed the river, cut our way to the top of a high hill, which we could not avoid. We found a patch of open ground on the hill, with grass for our horses and sheep. The trees growing on the hill were casuarinas, and acacias, with a few box-trees. Here we camped and tethered our horses, for fear they should fall down the steep bank of the river. At the foot of the hill, on the opposite side of this river, the rocks were of great height, and almost perpendicular. The river runs through a range of hills coming from the eastward, joining a very high range, over which our journey now lay. This range is composed of a dark-coloured granite, very hard; near the water was a vein of talc schist, running north-west and south-east. On the top of the hill we found large pebbles of quartz.
July 28.
This morning, having loosed our horses from the tether, one of them fell down from the hill upon a ledge of hard rock at the edge of the river, a descent of thirty feet; he was so much injured by the fall that he died during the day. We came down the hill through the scrub towards the mountains, and camped but a short distance from where we rested the previous evening. We were now at the foot of the range.