Yesterday and this day had been so excessively hot (82 degrees in the shade) that I confidently anticipated rain, especially when the sky became cloudy to the westward, while the wind blew steadily from the opposite quarter. A dense body of vapour in the shape of stratus, or fall cloud of the meteorologist, was at the same time stretching eastward along the distant horizon on both sides of us. After crossing some sound, open plains of stiff clay, guided by the natives, we gained an extensive pond of muddy water and encamped on a hill of red sand on its northern bank, and under shelter of a grove of callitris trees.
RAIN.
The wind now began to blow and the sky, to my great delight, being at length overcast, promised rain enough to fill the streams and waterholes: at twilight it began to come down. In the woods we passed through this day we found a curious willow-like acacia with the leaves slightly covered with bloom, and sprinkled on the underside with numerous reddish minute drops of resin.* The Pittosporum angustifolium we also recognised here, loaded with its singular orange-coloured bivalved fruit.
(*Footnote. This is allied in some respects to A. verniciflua and exudans, but is a very distinct and well-marked species. A. salicina, Lindley manuscripts; glaucescens, ramulis angulatis, phyllodiis divaricatis lineari et oblongo-lanceolatis utrinque angustatis obtusissimis uninerviis venulis pinnatis: ipso apice glandulosis subtus resinoso-punctatis, capitulis 3-5 racemosis phyllodiis triplo brevioribus.)
March 31.
It rained during the night and this morning the sky seemed as if it would continue; the mercury in the barometer also falling, we halted. On a dry sandhill, with wood and water at hand, we were well prepared to await the results of a flood; some good grass also was found for the cattle on firm ground at the distance of about two miles.
GOOBANG CREEK.
Mount Allan (Wollar of the natives) lay north-east by north, at a distance of 3 3/4 miles. It was not a conspicuous or commanding hill, but between it and our camp we this day discovered a feature of considerable importance. This was the Goobang creek of our former journey, to all appearance here as great a river as the Bogan and indeed its channel, where we formerly saw it, contained deep ponds of clear water at a season when the muddy holes of the Bogan had nearly failed us. Here the Goobang much resembled that river in the depth of its bed and the character of its banks: and its sources and tributaries must be also similar to those of the Bogan. Hervey's range gives birth to the one, Croker's range to the other and, their respective courses being along the opposite sides of the higher land extending westward between the Lachlan and Macquarie, all their tributaries must fall from the same ridge. Of these Mr. Oxley crossed several in his route from the Lachlan to the Macquarie; Emmeline's Valley creek belonging to the basin of the Goobang; Coysgaine's ponds and Allan's water to that of the Bogan. It was rather unfortunate, considering how much has been said about the Lachlan receiving no tributaries in its long course, that Mr. Oxley left unexplored that part where a tributary of such importance as the Goobang joins it; especially as the floods of this stream lay the country below Mount Cunningham under water, and are the sole cause of that swampy appearance which Mr. Oxley observed from the hill on looking westward. It would appear that this traveller's route northward was nearly parallel to the general course of the Goobang. The name this stream receives from the natives here is Billibang, Goobang being considered but one of its tributaries. Its course completes the analogy between the rivers and plains on each side, and the supposed disappearance of the channel of the Lachlan seemed consequently as doubtful as the mysterious termination of the Macquarie.
April 1.
The rain continuing, the party remained encamped. The barometer had fallen since we came here from 29.442, at which it stood last night at ten, to 29.180, which I noted this morning at six: the thermometer continuing about 60 degrees of Fahrenheit.