Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume ISturt, Charles
History
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume I
Sturt, Charles
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Sturt, Charles, 1795-1869
We travelled through a good deal of brush during the day, nor did the
country change from the miserable and barren character it had assumed
for the last thirty or forty miles. The Castlereagh had so frequently
changed, that both Mr. Hume and myself were puzzled as to the identity
of the creek upon which we had halted. We searched its bed in vain for
water, although it was most capacious. Under an impression that the
river was still to the south, and that we were at a point to which many
watercourses from the high lands tended, I crossed the creek early in
the morning, and held a S.W. course, over an open forest country. At
about eight miles, we came upon a large space over-run by the polygonum
junceum, a certain indication of flooded ground, and of our consequent
proximity to some stream. Accordingly, after pushing through it, we
struck upon a small creek with abundance of water in it. Whether this
creek was the Castlereagh, which it resembled much more than the one we
had left in the morning, was doubtful; but it was a great source of
comfort to us to have so unexpected a supply of water as that which was
now at our disposal. Whatever channel this was, whether a river or a
creek, our tracing it down would lead us in the direction we wished to
go, and probably to some junction.
The neighbourhood of the creek was well clothed with vegetation, and
the cattle found good feed; but the only trees near it were rough-gum
and casuarinae; the flooded-gum had again disappeared. The soil of the
forest land over which we journeyed was a light sandy loam; and its
timber consisted chiefly of eucalypti, acacia pendula, and the
angophora.
Some natives visited us in the afternoon, and among them, both Mr. Hume
and I recognized one of those we had seen on the Darling. He also knew
us again, but we could not make out from him how far we were from that
river. They stayed with us till sunset, and then went down the creek,
leaving their spears against a tree, for which they said they would
return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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