18TH MARCH.—Again we made out a short journey over rather soft ground; all the drays coming in, although slowly. I rode to a gently rising ground, a great novelty, which appeared bearing E. N. E. from our camp, at a distance of 2½ miles. I found it consisted of gravel of the usual conglomerate decomposed—of rounded fragments of about a cubic inch in bulk. The grass was good there, and I perceived that the same gravelly ridge extended back from the river in a north and south direction. Graceful groups of trees grew about this stony ground, which looked, upon the whole, better than the red sandy soil of the scrubs and callitris forest. This seemed the dividing ridge between the Narran and Barwan. From this elevation, I saw that the course of the former ran still in a good direction for us, to a great distance northward. On that stony ground I found a new Pittosporum five feet high, with long narrow leaves, in the way of P. roeanum and Angustifolium, but distinct from both in the form of its fruit.[*] Latitude of camp 29° 25' 21". Thermometer at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 90°; at 4 p.m., 96°; at 9, 69°;—with wet bulb, 61°.
[* P. salicinum (Lindl. MS.); foliis lineari-lanceolatis coriaccis acutissimis aveniis, pedunculis unifloris aggregatis axillaribus, fructibus subglobosis vix compressis.]
19TH MARCH.—Pursuing the Narran, keeping its eastern or left bank, our course this day was more to the northward. I encamped after travelling six miles, not only because the ground was soft and heavy for the drays, but because I saw that the Narran turned much to the eastward, and I contemplated the passage across it, intending to look for it again, by travelling northward. Accordingly, as soon as our ground had been marked out, I crossed to reconnoitre the country in that direction. I found a fine, open, grassy country, but no signs of the river at the end of five miles, nor even until I had ridden as far eastward. There, recrossing it, I returned to the camp through some fine open forest country. Latitude observed, 29° 21' 51", S. Thermometer at sunrise, 57°; at 4 p.m., 96°; at 9, 71°;—with wet bulb, 62°.
20TH MARCH.—Retracing my homeward tracks of yesterday, we proceeded in a nearly E. N. E. direction, along much firmer ground than we had recently traversed. The great eastern bend of the river was found amongst much excellent grass and amidst much fine timber. A species of Anthistiria appeared here, which seemed different from the ordinary sort, although this was no stranger to me, when exploring the waterless plains westward of the Lachlan, where it looked as if stunted for want of moisture. Here, however, this variety presented the same knotty head, where other grasses grew luxuriantly. After getting round the extreme eastern turn of the Narran we encamped. Near the spot large rocks appeared in the bed, as if the river was passing through the stock of the gravelly ridge I had visited on the 18th. The rock consisted of that found about the basin of the Darling; a quartzose conglomerate with much felspar, and having pebbles of quartz imbedded. The large fragments of the conglomerate in the river bed were angular, and not at all rounded at the edges. Here the poor natives had been very industrious, as was evident from heaps of the grass Panicum loevinode, and of the same redstalked coral-like plant, also mentioned as having been observed in similar heaps, on the banks of the Darling, during my journey of 1835 (vol. i. p. 238). I now ascertained that the seed of the latter is also collected by the natives and made into a paste. This seed was black and small, resembling fine gunpowder when shaken out. Nevertheless it was sweet and pleasant to the taste, possessing a nutty flavour.
The human inhabitants were few, and as invisible as other animals in these forests—the prints of whose feet were also plain in the soft smooth surface. As faithless as the snows of the North [*], this soil bore the impressions of all animals obliged to go to the water, and amongst them those of the naked feet of men, women, and children, with the prints likewise of other bipeds, such as emus and kangaroos, and also those of the native dog. Here still was our own race amongst other animals all new and strange to Europeans. The prints of the foot of man alone were familiar to us. But here he was living in common with other animals, simply on the bounty of nature; artless, and apparently as much afraid of us, and as shy, as other animals of the forest. It seemed strange, that in a climate the most resembling that of Milton's paradise, the circumstances of man's existence should be the most degrading. Latitude of our camp, 29° 19' 26" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 55°; at noon, 100°; at 4 p.m., 101°; at 9, 70°;—with wet bulb, 65°. The mean elevation above the sea of our camps thus far on the Narran, seven in number, was 477 feet; the bed of the river being about 15 feet lower.
[* "And hungry Maukin's ta'en her way
To kailyards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Whar she has been." Burns.]
21ST MARCH.—Proceeded as usual through fine grass, the river coming favourably round towards the north. At about two miles I found some traces of horses, and I looked at the river bank for Commissioner Mitchell's initials, supposing this might be "Congo," where he had forded the Narran. But we had not reached the latitude of Congo according to his map. Nevertheless we found here such an excellent dry ford, with gently sloping banks to a stony bottom, that the two circumstances induced me to cross the Narran with the party. I travelled west-ward, until meeting with a dense scrub, I turned towards the friendly Narran, where we encamped in latitude 29° 15' 31" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 97°; at 4 p.m., 101°; at 9, 72°; ditto with wet bulb, 66°.
22D MARCH.—Gave the party a day's rest, prayers being read by the surgeon, as was usual whenever circumstances admitted of our halting on Sunday. The bed of the Narran presented in several places the denuded rock, which seems the basis of all the soil and gravel of the country. At one place irregular concretions of milk-white quartz, cemented by a ferruginous basis, was predominant; at another, the rough surface of compact felspar weathering white presented merely the cavities in which large rounded pebbles had been imbedded, until the partial decomposition of the felspar, under the river floods, had exposed them once more to the action of water. The force of those waters, however, had not been sufficient to cut a channel through very soft rocks extending right across their course—a circumstance rather characteristic, perhaps, of a river like the Narran, watering a nearly level country, and terminating in a swamp. Thermometer at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 95°; at 4 p.m., 98°; at 9, 72°;—with wet bulb, 66°. Height above the sea, 515 feet, from eight observations.
23RD MARCH.—All hands were bent on an early start this morning, and, soon after seven, the party moved off. We crossed much grassy land, almost approaching to the character of scrub as to bushes; but we pursued a tolerably straight course to the N.W., until we again made the Narran at 8½ miles. Various new plants attracted my attention this day, especially a beautiful Loranthus on the rosewood Acacia, and a small bush bearing a green pod resembling a small capsicum in shape. Among the sedges by the river we found the Kyllinga monocephala; and, on the rich black clayed soil near it, a species of bindweed out of flower, with large sagittate leaves: in the scrubs back from the river, grew a small bush, about four feet high, which has been considered either a variety of Brown's Santalum oblongatum, or a new species distinguished by its narrow sharp-pointed leaves. The Loranthus lineari. Folius was growing on the rosewood Acacia, and the branches of Eucalypti were inhabited by the parasitical orange loranth.[*] Lat., 29°1 0' 6" S. Therm. at sunrise, 51°; at noon, 95°; at 4 p.m., 99°; at 9, 70°;—wet bulb, 63°.
[* L. aurantiacus (All. Cunn. MS.); ramis elongatis laxis gracilibus, foliis oppositis longe petiolatis oblongis obtusis lanceolatisve acuminatis glabris 3-5-nerviis tenui-marginatis, paniculis folio brevioribus ditrichotomis, floribus erectis, calycibus subcylindraceis superne latioribus truncatis, petalis linearibus 6, stylo infra apicem geniculato, stigmate dilatato truncato.—W. J. H.]