Onward and westward went the movement of stock. The principal topic of conversation turned always upon new country, the latest discoveries of good grazing lands, and the men who were following with sheep and cattle. The way out west in those first days led up the Cape River through poor country, with a good deal of spinifex grass and patches of poison bush. On the flat tableland dividing the Gulf waters from those flowing towards the Thomson, were a series of large shallow swamps, known as Billy Webb's Lake, a kind of halting place for stock. Between this and the Flinders waters lies a tract of country nearly two hundred miles in width, called the Desert--and the name is a well-deserved one. The Desert consists of spinifex ridges and sandy sterile country, covered in large patches with the desert poison shrub botanically known as "Gastrolobium grandiflora." This dangerous plant grows to a height of six to eight feet in separate bushes, and exhibits a bluish-silvery sheen conspicuous afar off. It bears a scarlet blossom like a vetch, and the leaf is indented at the outer end. Its poisonous nature was soon proved by the first stock that attempted the passage. Many of the early drovers lost large numbers of both cattle and sheep from its deadly effects. In one camp, Halloran's and Alexander's, as many as 1,500 sheep died in one night from eating it. All the stock passing through this belt of desert country paid some tribute to its evil properties. This poison plant is peculiar to the strip of desert country that extends along the dividing watershed for many hundreds of miles, from the Alice River reaching north as far as the Lynd. The symptoms of poisoning from this plant are a kind of madness, causing animals to rush about furiously, and then, becoming paralysed, to fall helpless to the ground, and soon expire. There are but one or two varieties of the plant in Queensland, though in Western Australia twelve or fourteen varieties of Gastrolobium are found.