Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Queensland -- Discovery and exploration
MELALEUCA.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 23 deg.; at noon, 58 deg.; at 4 P.M., 63 deg.;
at 9, 29 deg.; with wet bulb, 18 deg..
[* M. TAMARISCINA (Hook. MSS.); ramosissima ramulis gracillimis copiose
excavatis e foliis delapsis, foliis rameis remotis parvis ovatis
acuminatis appressis, ramulinis minutissimis squamaeformibus convexis
obtusis imbricatis immersis, capsulis circa ramos spicatis parvis
globosis.--A very singular MELALEUCA, somewhat allied to M. HUGELII,
Endl.: but extremely different in the very minute squamiform leaves of
the copious slender branchlets, from which they fall and leave the
bleached slender branchlets full of little pits or cavities in which the
leaves had been, as it were, sunk.]
5TH AUGUST.--The last-found river not having answered my expectations, we
had come quite far enough from the one we had previously followed, which
still might have turned N.W., where we wished it to go; although I
confess the prospect was by no means promising. The doubt was still to be
removed, and, after a night passed without water, the earliest dawn saw
us again going forward, in a direction a little to the eastward of N. It
was only after pursuing that line for seventeen miles, that we again
found the river, unchanged in character, and still running northerly.
This was a trying day for our animals, as they could not be watered until
long after it was dark; a brigalow scrub, full of much fallen timber,
having retarded and impeded the carts so that they could not be got to
the water sooner. Nor had this been possible, even then, but for the
fortunate circumstance of our having the light of a nearly full moon. I
had preceded the party by some miles, accompanied by Yuranigh, the rest
following my horse's tracks, and I had thus passed through the four miles
of scrub, and reached the river early in the day. On returning, we found
the party in the midst of this scrub, and succeeded in guiding it, even
by moonlight, to the pond at which we had watered our horses during the
day. Many dry hollows of indurated mud appeared, as usual, in the
brigalow we had passed through; and we endeavoured to lead the carts, as
much as possible, through these hollows, in order to avoid the dead logs,
many of which we were obliged to cut, before the carts could pass. Many
deep impressions of natives' feet appeared in these clay hollows; also
the tracks of emus. Yuranigh showed me several tracks where a native had
been following a kangeroo's track; and he told me of a certain method
adopted by the natives of killing the kangeroo during wet weather,--which
is, to pursue the track, following it up day after day, until they
overtake the animal, which, on being so incessantly followed, becomes at
length so defenceless, that one native can despatch it with a tomahawk.
According to the barometer, it appeared that this river was not now much
higher above the level of the sea, than the Bogan or the Balonne. Still
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account