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 — John Shaqi
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)
History
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
When we were near the spot on which we intended to encamp a native
pointed out to me a small hill beyond the river where, as he informed me,
Mr. Oxley and his party had encamped before he crossed the Lachlan. It
was called by this native Gobberguyn. We pitched our tents a little
higher than that hill where a favourable bend of the river met my line of
route. The cattle were much fatigued with the day's work although the
distance did not exceed eleven miles. It was in my power however to give
them rest for a day or two as the grass was tolerably good on that part
of the riverbank, and I was within reach of Mount Granard, a height which
I had long been anxious to examine, as well as the country to be seen
from it. Among the usual grasses we found one which I had not previously
seen and which proved to be a new species of Danthonia.*
(*Footnote. Danthonia pectinata, Lindley manuscripts; spica simplici
secunda pleiostachya pectinata foliis multo longiore, palea inferiore
villosissima; laciniis lateralibus membranaceis aristae aequalibus.)
RIDE TO MOUNT GRANARD.
April 7.
I set off early for Mount Granard, followed by six men on horseback and a
native named Barney who was also mounted. We rode at a smart pace on a
bearing of 280 degrees across thirty miles of soft red sand in which the
horses sank up to their fetlocks, and we reached the foot of the hill a
little before sunset.
SCARCITY OF WATER THERE.
Throughout that extent we neither saw a single watercourse nor discovered
the least indication of water having lodged there during any season. At
eleven miles from the camp we crossed a low ridge of granite (named
Tarratta) a hopeful circumstance to us as promising a primitive range of
hills between the Darling and Lachlan, and because in a crevice of this
granite our aboriginal guide found some water. The desert tract we
crossed was in other respects unvaried except that, in one place, we
passed through four miles of a kind of scrub which presented difficulties
of a new character. The whole of it consisted of bushes of a dwarf
species of eucalyptus, doubtless E. dumosa (A. Cunningham) which grew in
a manner that rendered it impossible to proceed, except in a very sinuous
direction, and then with difficulty by pushing our horses between stiffly
grown branches. Where no bushes grew the earth was naked, except where
some tufts of a coarse matted weed resembling Spinifex impeded the
horses, but seemed to be intended by Providence to bind down these desert
sands. We saw blue ranges on our right, and I hoped that before we
ascended Mount Granard we should cross some watercourse coming from them;
but nothing of the kind appeared and, after traversing a dry sandy flat,
we began to ascend. Finding myself separated from the summit, after we
had climbed some way, by a deep rocky ravine, and being in doubt about
obtaining water, I sent the people with the horses to encamp in the
valley to which that ravine opened, with directions to look for water
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