May 27.--The river turned more to the northward, and, joined by many gullies, wound its way between wild and rocky, though low ranges. At a place where it left a range of rugged little peaks, basalt re-appeared at its banks, and extended for some distance, now filling flats with its rough and cellular blocks and pebbles, and again forming small hillocks of black bare rock. As soon, however, as the river had fairly left the basaltic formation, fine large flats of a light sandy soil succeeded on both sides; on which Pandanus spiralis grew in great abundance, and to a larger size than we had seen before. The bed of the river became very broad, and was covered with sands, shingle, and pebbles of the rocks of its upper course. I passed through a broad rocky gap of a range tending from east to west, and, at about two miles beyond and to the north-west of it, we encamped, in lat. 17 degrees 54 minutes 40 seconds.
In passing this gap, on a previous reconnoitring ride with Brown, I met with several natives with their wives and children, encamped at the north entrance of it. When they saw us, the men poised their spears, and shook their waddis to frighten us, but when, notwithstanding their menaces, we approached them, they left all their goods, and with their weapons only hurried up the rocks with wonderful agility. Three koolimans (vessels of stringy bark) were full of honey water, from one of which I took a hearty draught, and left a brass button for payment. Dillis, fish spears, a roasted bandicoot, a species of potatoe, wax, a bundle of tea-tree bark with dry shavings; several flints fastened with human hair to the ends of sticks, and which are used as knives to cut their skin and food; a spindle to make strings of opossum wool; and several other small utensils, were in their camp. One of my Blackfellows found a fine rock-crystal [Note at end of para.] in one of their bags, when we passed the place next day with our bullocks. The poor people had evidently not yet ventured to return. The natives we had formerly met, had generally watched our movements from a distance, and had returned to their camp as soon as we had fairly left it; but these seemed too much frightened; and I should not be surprised to find that the mountainous nature of their country had given them a greater share of superstition.
[Note: This shows how far the custom extends throughout the continent, of considering the rock-crystal as sacred; whether it be that it has been transmitted from tribe to tribe, or that the native was everywhere inclined to pick up a shining stone, and to consider it endowed with peculiar virtues. From the absence of brilliant ores, or precious stones, in the bags and dillis of the natives, I concluded, that neither precious stones nor brilliant metallic substances existed in the country where they lived. Those with whom we came in contact, generally admired our gold and silver chains and watches very much, but had nothing to show in return except broken shells from the sea-coast]
Among the new and interesting scrubs and trees which we met with at almost every step, I shall only mention a small Grevillea, from one to two feet in height, with pubescent pinnatifid leaves, and a simple or compound thyrsus of scarlet flowers; Cochlospermum gossypium, the native cotton tree of Port Essington, whose bright showy yellow blossoms and large capsules full of silky cotton, attracted our attention; its leaves are deciduous, and the trees were entirely leafless; a fine species of Calytrix on the rocks, and two of Loranthus on the drooping tea tree, the drooping foliage of which one of them imitated, whilst the other belonged to the group I mentioned as found at the Suttor, with its flowers inserted on a leafy bract.
Exocarpus latifolius is so different from E. cupressiformis, in its foliage and aspect, that I did not suspect their near relation, until I found blossom and fruit: the ripe kernel as well as its yellow succulent leaf-stalk have a very agreeable taste; a leguminous shrub, about five or six feet high, with purple blossoms gathered into terminal oblong heads; this would be an ornament to our gardens. Along the river we discovered a large tree, about forty or fifty feet in height, with rather singularly disposed horizontal branches and rich dark green foliage; its leaves were oblong acute, and frequently a foot long; its flowers formed dense heads, which grew into a fleshy body marked with the arcoles of every flower. It is either Sarcocephalus or Zuccarinia, or nearly allied to them. The tree has never been seen on easterly waters, but it was the invariable companion of all the larger freshwater rivers round the gulf. A fine species of Gomphrena was found in the sandy bed of the river. A species of Terminalia, a fine shady tree, with spreading branches and broad elliptical leaves, grew along the sandy creeks; and another smaller one with Samara fruit preferred the rocky slopes. Both of these, and a third species growing on the west side of the gulph, which I shall have to mention hereafter, supplied us with fine eatable gum, and a fourth species, with smooth leaves, had an eatable fruit of a purple colour.
The view I obtained from one of the hills near our yesterday's camp was very characteristic. The country was broken by low ranges of various extent, formed by exceedingly rocky hills and peaks, which lifted their rugged crests above the open forest that covered their slopes. Heaps of rocks with clusters of trees, particularly the smooth-leaved fig tree, the rose-coloured Sterculia, Exocarpus latifolius, were scattered over the slopes, or grew on the summits, to which they gave the resemblance of the lifted crest of an irritated cockatoo, particularly when huge fantastic blocks were striking out between the vegetation. As we travelled along, ranges of hills of this character appeared one after another; to which wallums and wallabies fled for security as we scared them from the river's side; the rose-breasted cockatoo (Cocatua Eos, GOULD.) visited the patches of fresh burnt grass, in large flocks; bustards were numerous on the small flats between basaltic hillocks, where they fed on the ripe fruit of Grewia.
On the evening of the 27th May, we killed one of our bullocks, which had suffered more than any of the others by the journey, in consequence of his having carried our ammunition, which had decreased comparatively little, and the great weight of which had raised large lumps on his ribs, which had formed into ulcers. We were very disagreeably disappointed in not finding sufficient fat to fry the liver, which was our favourite dish; even the fat of the marrow had disappeared and had left a watery tissue, which, when grilled for some time, turned into a yellow substance, having the taste of the fried yolk of an egg. We dried our meat on the 28th, 29th, and 30th. I took a set of lunar sights, and calculated my longitude 143 degrees 30 minutes.
May 31.--We had scarcely left, our camp, when swarms of crows and kites (Milvus isiurus) took possession of it, after having given us a fair fight during the previous days, whilst we were drying the meat. Their boldness was indeed remarkable, and if the natives had as much, we should soon have had to quit our camp. Proceeding, we travelled over a broken and very stony country, with a stiff soil, but mixed with so much sand that even the Severn tree grew well. There was another small tree, the branches of which were thickly covered with bright green leaves; it had round inferior fruit, about half an inch in diameter, which was full of seeds: when ripe, it was slightly pulpy and acidulous, and reminded me of the taste of the coarse German rye bread. In consequence of this resemblance, we called this little tree the Bread tree of the Lynd. I ate handfulls of this fruit without the slightest inconvenience. A species of Pittosporum, and several Acacias, Pandanus, and the leguminous Ironbark, were scattered through an open forest of Ironbark and lanceolate box. I observed here a very ornamental little tree, with drooping branches and linear lanceolate drooping leaves three inches long; it very much resembled a species of Capparis that I had seen at the Isaacs. Its blossoms are very small, and the calyx and corolla have each five divisions; the stamens are opposite the petals; it bore a fruit like a small apple, with a hard outside, but pulpy and many seeded within, like Capparis; the calyx was attached to the base of the fruit.
The rock was still granitic, with small outbreaks of basalt; the leaflets of white mica were visible everywhere in the soil and in the large ant-hills, whose building materials were derived from the decomposed felspar. The bed of the river was frequently rocky, and very broad, with low banks and no water. The highest flood-marks we observed were from six to eight feet above the level of the bed; these marks were on the trunks of Casuarinas, Melaleucas, and flooded-gum, which grew along the channel. The country in general had a winterly appearance; and the grass round the camp was dry, but I observed the fine grass of the Isaacs, and many varieties which grow on the Suttor and Burdekin, which will yield an excellent feed in the proper season; and, even at the present, neither our bullocks nor horses were starving.
The part of the country in which we were, possesses great interest in a meteorological point of view. In the centre of the York Peninsula, between the east coast and the gulf, and on the slopes to the latter, as might be expected, the northerly and easterly winds which set in so regularly after sunset, as well along the Burdekin as on the basaltic table land, failed, and were succeeded here by slight westerly and easterly breezes, without any great and decided movement in the atmosphere; and westerly winds, which had formerly been of rare occurrence, became more frequent and stronger. The days, from the stillness of the air, were very hot; but at night the dews were heavy, and it was very cold. Charley asserted that he had seen ice at our last camp.