POISONED WATERHOLE.
We finally encamped on the Lachlan at the junction of the Goobang, in latitude 33 degrees 5 minutes 20 seconds; longitude East 147 degrees 13 minutes 10 seconds. There the river contained some deep pools and we expected to catch fish; but Piper told us that the holes had been recently poisoned, a process adopted by the natives in dry seasons, when the river no longer flows, for bringing the fish to the surface of deep ponds and thus killing the whole; I need not add that none of us got a bite. All these holes were full of recently cut boughs of the eucalyptus, so that the water was tinged black.
ASCEND HURD'S PEAK.
April 5.
As soon as the party had started I gave the overseer the bearings and distances to be pursued; while I proceeded to the cone named Hurd's peak by Oxley, but by the natives Tolga. It was distant about four miles from our line of route. A low ridge of quartz rock extends from the Goobang to this peak the base of which consists of chlorite slate, and its summit of squarish pebbles of quartz, with the angles rounded, associated with fragments of chlorite slate. There was just convenient room on it for the theodolite and, as it afforded a most satisfactory and commanding view, well suited for the purpose of surveying, it seemed to have been aptly named after a distinguished geographer. Many points of a distant range now appeared on the north-western horizon in the direction of Oxley's Mount Granard, and the ridge of Bolloon (towards the great lake Cudjallagong) seemed not very distant. I took angles on all the points and then hastened to overtake the party, which I did after they had travelled about nine miles. At fourteen miles we made the banks of the Lachlan, and encamped by the side of it on the edge of a plain in latitude 33 degrees 4 minutes 38 seconds South, longitude 147 degrees East. Judging by the relative position of Hurd's peak etc., I supposed it might have been about this place that Oxley's party crossed to the right bank of the river on his return towards Wellington valley. No traces however were discovered by us here of the first explorers of the Lachlan.
April 6.
The night had been mild and clear and the sun rose in a cloudless sky. We traversed plains of firmer surface than those crossed on the previous day. So early even as nine o'clock the heat was oppressive.
SNAKE AND BIRD.
On one of these plains I witnessed an instance of the peculiar fascination attributed to the serpent race. A large snake, lying at full length, attracted our attention and I wished to take it alive, but as Roach, the collector, was at a distance, some time elapsed before preparations were made for that purpose. The ground was soft and full of holes, into one of which it would doubtless have disappeared as soon as it was alarmed. The rest of the party came up yet, unlike snakes in general, who glide rapidly off, this creature lay apparently regardless of noise, or even of the approach of the man, who went slowly behind it and seized its head. At that moment a little bird fluttered from beside a small tuft within a few feet of the snake and, it seemed, as the men believed, scarcely able to make its escape.
When we were near the spot on which we intended to encamp a native pointed out to me a small hill beyond the river where, as he informed me, Mr. Oxley and his party had encamped before he crossed the Lachlan. It was called by this native Gobberguyn. We pitched our tents a little higher than that hill where a favourable bend of the river met my line of route. The cattle were much fatigued with the day's work although the distance did not exceed eleven miles. It was in my power however to give them rest for a day or two as the grass was tolerably good on that part of the riverbank, and I was within reach of Mount Granard, a height which I had long been anxious to examine, as well as the country to be seen from it. Among the usual grasses we found one which I had not previously seen and which proved to be a new species of Danthonia.*