Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia: From Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845Leichhardt, Ludwig
History
Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia: From Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845
Leichhardt, Ludwig
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration
Large flocks of Peristera histrionica (the Harlequin pigeon) were lying
on the patches of burnt grass on the plains, they feed on the brown seeds
of a grass, which annoyed us very much by getting into our stockings,
trowsers, and blankets. The rose-breasted cockatoo, Mr. Gilbert's
Platycercus of Darling Downs, and the Betshiregah (Melopsittacus
undulatus, GOULD.) were very numerous, and it is probable that the plains
round the gulf are their principal home, whence they migrate to the
southward. The white and black cockatoos were also very numerous.
John Murphy caught four perches, one of which weighed two pounds. The
purple ant of the east coast has disappeared, and a similar one with
brick-coloured head and thorax, but by no means so voracious, has taken
its place.
The flooded-gum and the bloodwood were in blossom: this usually takes
place, at Moreton Bay, in November and December. This different state of
vegetation to the northward and southward, may perhaps account for the
periodical migration of several kinds of birds.
June 21.--A shower of rain fell, but cleared up at midnight. We travelled
nine miles north-west to lat. 16 degrees 9 minutes 41 seconds, over a
country very much like that of the two preceding stages, and past several
fine lagoons, richly adorned by the large showy flowers of a white
Nymphaea, the seed-vessels of which some families of natives were busily
gathering: after having blossomed on the surface of the water, the
seed-vessel grows larger and heavier, and sinks slowly to the bottom,
where it rots until its seeds become free, and are either eaten by fishes
and waterfowl, or form new plants. The natives had consequently to dive
for the ripe seed-vessels; and we observed them constantly disappearing
and reappearing on the surface of the water. They did not see us until we
were close to them, when they hurried out of the water, snatched up some
weapons and ran off, leaving their harvest of Nymphaea seeds behind.
Brown had visited another lagoon, where he had seen an old man and two
gins; the former endeavoured to frighten him by setting the grass on
fire, but, when he saw that Brown still approached, he retired into the
forest. We took a net full of seeds, and I left them a large piece of
iron as payment. On returning to the camp, we boiled the seeds, after
removing the capsule; but as some of the numerous partitions had
remained, the water was rendered slightly bitter. This experiment having
failed, the boiled seeds were then (Unclear:)tied with a little fat,
which rendered them very palatable and remarkably satisfying. The best
way of cooking them was that adopted by the natives, who roast the whole
seed-vessel. I then made another trial to obtain the starch from the
bitter potatoes, in which I succeeded; but the soup for eight people,
made with the starch of sixteen potatoes, was rather thin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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