Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
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Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone), 1792-1855
Having chosen for a general line of route the bearing most likely to
avoid the swamps according to the knowledge I had gained of the country,
I proceeded as these and the soft ground permitted, and had the singular
and indeed unexpected good fortune to come upon my horse's track from
Mount Napier without having even seen the large swamp. The boat-carriage
now travelled with the light carts, and we at length reached the first
running stream at a short distance below where I had previously crossed
it. The bottom was boggy and the water flowed in two channels, the ground
between them being very soft. The whole party crossed it, with the
exception of two carts which did not arrive, and we encamped on the bank
beyond after a journey of about eight miles. Near this stream we found a
pretty new species of Dillwynia, with plain yellow flowers, clustered on
a long stalk at the end of the branches, and with curiously hairy
heath-like leaves. It resembles D. peduncularis but proved, on
examination, to be distinct.*
(*Footnote. D. hispida, Lindley manuscripts; ramulis hispidulis, foliis
linearibus patulis verrucosis obtusis hispidulis, corymbis longe
pedunculatis terminalibus laxis paucifloris, pedunculo glaberrimo,
pedicellis calycibusque pubescentibus.)
At this spot we found a very small bower of twigs, only large enough to
contain a child: the floor was hollowed out and filled with dry leaves
and feathers; and the ground around had been cut smooth, several boughs
having been also bent over it so as to be fixed in the ground at both
ends. The whole seemed connected with some mystic ceremony of the
aborigines, but which the male natives who were with us could not
explain. The gins however on being questioned said it was usual to
prepare such a bower for the reception of a new-born child. Kangaroos
were more numerous in this part of the country than in any other that we
had traversed. I counted twenty-three in one flock which passed before me
as I stood silently by a tree. Two of the men counted fifty-seven in
another flock, and it was not unusual for them to approach our camp as if
from curiosity, on which occasions two or three were occasionally caught
by our dogs.
September 8.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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