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
Sept. 5.--We travelled about ten miles west by north, to lat. 16 degrees
48 minutes 22 seconds. Having passed a rather open forest of bloodwood,
apple-gum, and leguminous Ironbark, with isolated patches of scrub, and
some dry teat-ree swamps with heaps of calcined mussel-shells, we came to
a thick stringy-bark forest, on a sandy soil, with a hard sandstone
cropping out frequently. This opened into the flats of a sandy Pandanus
creek, which we crossed; and, three miles farther, we came to another
broad creek with salt water. Its bed was rocky, and we forded it easily.
I followed one of its branches for several miles, and found, after
passing its salt-water pools, a small pool of fresh water in its rocky
sandy bed, near which I observed an old camping place of the natives. I
was considerably in advance of my train, and the dog was with me. As I
was examining the pool of water and the numerous tracks round it, an emu
came walking along the shady bed of the creek; I immediately mounted my
horse and pursued it with the dog, and caught it after a very short run;
to prevent its wounding the dog, I dismounted to kill it, when my horse
became frightened, broke loose, and ran away. I returned with the emu to
the water, and when the train arrived, I sent Charley after the horse,
whilst I walked about two miles further up the creek to find a better
supply of water. Not succeeding, however, I returned and encamped at the
small pool, which we enlarged with the spade, and obtained a sufficient
supply of very good water. Charley returned with the horse, but my
saddlebags, my journals and a calabash were lost. I was in great anxiety,
and blamed myself severely for having committed such an act of
imprudence. Charley went, however, a second time on foot, and succeeded
in finding everything but the calabash, which was a great loss to our
dog.
In the camping place of the natives, I found a large round stone of
porphyry, upon which the natives were accustomed to break the
seed-vessels of Pandanus. I could discover no indications of this rock in
the creek, not even the smallest pebble; and I am consequently inclined
to think that this stone was brought by the natives from a considerable
distance to the south-west. But, from the broken pieces of granite of our
last camp, it became evident that a rocky primitive country, like that of
the upper Lynd, could not be very distant. Even the vegetation agreed
well with that of the same locality; as the dwarf Grevillea, G.
chrysodendrum, and the falcate Grevillea of the upper Lynd, were here
again observed. The tea-trees along the banks of the creek, as far as the
salt-water extended, were leafless and dead. This may be accounted for by
a succession of dry years in which usual freshes have not taken place;
and by the supposition that the drooping tea-tree cannot live on water
entirely salt.
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