Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia Volume II Part 2

Ascend Mount Amyot.

Field's Plains.

Cracks in the surface.

Ascend Mount Cunningham.

Mr. Oxley's tree.

Rain.

Goobang Creek.

Large fishes.

Heavy rain.

Ascend Mount Allan.

Natives from the Bogan.

Prophecy of a Coradje.

Poisoned waterhole.

Ascend Hurd's Peak.

Snake and bird.

Ride to Mount Granard.

Scarcity of water there.

View from the summit.

Encamp there.

Ascend Bolloon, a hill beyond the Lachlan.

Natives refuse to eat emu.

Native dog.

Kalingalungaguy.

Mr. Stapylton overtakes the party.

Of the plains in general.

Character of the Goobang and Bogan.

Cudjallagong or Regent's Lake.

Nearly dry.

Dead trees in it.

Rocks near it.

Trap and tuff.

Natives there.

Women.

Men.

Their account of the country lower down.

Oolawambiloa.

Gaiety of the natives.

Colour light.

Mr. Stapylton surveys the lake.

Campbell's Lake.

Piper obtains a gin.

Ascend Goulburn range.

View from the summit.

Warranary.

A new Correa.

CONTINUE THE JOURNEY.

March 25.

Following the direction of the general course of the Lachlan as laid down by Mr. Oxley we crossed a fine tract of open forest land, and at the distance of five miles arrived at a dry reach. Soon after we pa.s.sed Billabugan, a cattle station on the river where the dry branch joined it; and at three miles further we traversed the southern skirts of a plain, and finally made a bend of the Lachlan on which we encamped in lat.i.tude 33 degrees 24 minutes 28 seconds South. In the course of this day's journey we discovered a bush resembling the European dwarf elder but with yellow flowers, and fruit with scarcely any pulp.*

(*Footnote. This proves to be a new genus of Caprifoliaceae, paragraph mark Sambuceae. Tripetelus australasicus, Lindley ma.n.u.scripts (tripetelos having 3 leaves; the calyx has 3 sepals, the corolla 3 petals, the stamens are 3, and the carpels are also 3). Calyx superus tridentatus.

Corolla rotata, tripart.i.ta, lutea, laciniis concavis conniventibus.

Antherae tres, fauce sessiles. Ovarium 3-loculare; ovulis solitariis pendulis; stigmata 3, sessilia. Fructus subexsuccus, 3-queter, 3-pyrenus, putamine chartaceo. Caulis herbaceus. Folia opposita, glabra, pinnata, 2-juga c.u.m impari, laciniis lanceolatis ac.u.minatis serratis; glandulis 2 verruciformibus loco stipularum. Flores laxe paniculati.)

Acacia pendula.

March 26.

This day at five miles further we ascended some undulating ground on which the acacias of the interior grew. We found the same ridged and wavy surface with the Acacia pendula and the pigeons which usually abound about such parts of the country. Here we found also a singular species of Jasmine, forming an upright bush not unlike a Vitex, with short axillary panicles of white flowers. It proved to be J. lineare, R. Br. We soon after came upon the borders of the great plain of Gullerong, which extends about eight miles from east to west, and three northward from a branch of the river, then quite dry. These I believe were the Solway-flats of Mr. Oxley. We turned from them late in the afternoon, at the suggestion of a native wearing a bra.s.s-plate like a bottle label, and on which was engraven Billy Hawthorne. We succeeded in reaching a bend of the river containing water only after travelling 18 1/4 miles; and in lat.i.tude 33 degrees 23 minutes 21 seconds South.

March 27.

This day being Sunday I halted; especially as the cattle had made an unusually long journey the day before. I wished to take sights for the purpose of ascertaining the rate of my chronometer, and to lay down my surveys. I found that Mr. Oxley's points on this river were much too far to the westward; a circ.u.mstance to be expected as his survey could not, at that early age of the colony, be connected with Parramatta by actual measurement; as mine was. Our lat.i.tudes however agreed very exactly.

ASCEND MOUNT AMYOT.

March 28.

Continued our journey and, at only a mile and a half from our camp, I was surprised to find myself at the foot of Mount Amyot, better known to stockmen by its native name of Camerberdang. I gave the party a bearing or distant object to advance upon; and I lost no time in ascending the hill, followed by Woods with my theodolite. From its crest, low as it was, I still recognised the Can.o.bolas and ascertained from my drawings formerly made there that even on this hill (Mount Amyot) I had taken an angle from their summit last season. It was valuable now, enabling me to determine the true place of the hill from which I was to extend my angles further westward. I easily recognised Marga and Nangar, and a very useful and remarkable point of my former survey to the northward of those hills, also several still more conspicuous ones in the country beyond the Lachlan.

FIELD'S PLAINS.

To the westward I beheld the view etched in Mr. Oxley's book as Field's Plains; and what was of much more importance to me then, Mounts Cunningham, Melville, Allan, etc. etc. on all which, as far as I could, I took angles, and then descending, rejoined the party about six miles on.

I met at the foot of this hill a colonist, a native of the country.* He said he had been seventy miles down the river in search of a run for his cattle; but had found none; and he a.s.sured me that, without the aid of the blacks who were with him on horseback, he could not have obtained water.

(*Footnote. Mr. James Collits of Mount York.)

Mount Amyot had the appearance of granite from the plains, but I found that it consisted of the ferruginous sandstone. It is the southern extremity of a long ridge elevated not more than 200 feet above the plains at its base. We encamped at a bend of the river, on the border of a small plain named Merumba in lat.i.tude 33 degrees 19 minutes 16 seconds South. Variation 8 degrees 54 minutes 15 seconds East.

We were here disturbed by herds of cattle running towards our spare bullocks and mixing with them and the horses. In no district have I seen cattle so numerous as all along the Lachlan; and notwithstanding the very dry season, they were nearly all in good condition. We found this day, near the river bed, a new herbaceous indigo with white flowers and pods like those of the p.r.i.c.kly liquorice (Glycyrrhiza echinata).*

(*Footnote. I. acantho carpa, Lindley ma.n.u.scripts; caule herbaceo erecto ramisque angulatis scabriusculis, foliis pinnatis 5-jugis viscido-p.u.b.escentibus; foliolis lineari-lanceolatis mucronulatis margine scabris, racemis folio aequalibus, leguminibus subrotundo-ovalibus compressis mucronatis echinatis monospermis.)

March 29.

Our next point was Mount Cunningham (Beery birree of the natives) and we travelled towards it along the margin of Field's Plains as the angles of the river allowed.

CRACKS IN THE SURFACE.

This was our straightest course, but we had to keep along the riverbank for another reason. The plains were full of deep cracks and holes so that the cart wheels more than once sunk into them, and thus detained us for nearly an hour. A sagacious black advised us to keep near the riverbank, and we found the ground better. We encamped at half-past two o'clock, after a journey of ten miles; and I immediately set out, accompanied by a native and a man carrying my theodolite, both on horseback, for the highest or northern point of Mount Cunningham (a). The distance was full five miles; yet we could not proceed direct on horseback, the scorched plains being full of deep, wide cracks; and we were therefore compelled to take a circuitous route nearer the river.

ASCEND MOUNT CUNNINGHAM.

There our guide called up three savage-looking natives with spears, whom he described to be the natives of the hill, and they accompanied us to the top. With some difficulty we led our horses near the crest, our new friends always keeping the vantage ground of us, apparently from apprehension. At length I planted my theodolite on the highest part of the summit which commanded a fine view of the western horizon; and from the mouths of my sable guides I obtained the native names, in all their purity, of the various hills in sight. The most distant, named Bolloon, were said to be near the great lake Cudjallagong--no doubt Regent's Lake of Oxley--and a peak they called Tolga I took to be Hurd's Peak of the same traveller.

NYORORONG.

Still I saw nothing on the horizon in the direction of his Mount Granard, and in no other any hill of magnitude, except in the quarter whence I came, where I still discerned my old friends Marga and Nangar, with Nyororong and Berabidjal, high hills more to the southward.