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 by Ludwig Leichhardt
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page 55 of 431 (12%)
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for that purpose. We used the skins of the kangaroos to cover our
flour-bags, which were in a most wretched condition. Our latitude was 25 degrees 19 minutes 19 seconds. Nov. 28.--Charley and Brown informed us that they had followed the watercourse, and had come to a broad river with precipitous banks, which would not allow any passage for our horses and cattle; they also stated that the watercourse on which we were encamped, became a rocky gully, and that it would be impossible to cross it lower down. From this information I supposed that a river, like the Robinson, rising in many gullies of the north-east ranges, and flowing in south-west direction was before us; I, therefore, decided upon heading it. It was, however, very difficult to find a leading spur, and we frequently came on deep and impassable gullies, surrounded by a dense thicket of cypresspine, and a great variety of shrubs peculiar to sandstone rock. After travelling about nine miles in a N. 15 degrees E. direction, we came to a subordinate range, and having found, in one of its watercourses, some tolerable grass and a fine water-hole, we were enabled to encamp. Mr. Roper and Charley, who had kept a little more to the left, reported that they had been on one of the heads of the Boyd, and had seen a fine open country to the westward, and south-west. The "Boyd" was so named in acknowledgment of the liberal support I had received from Benjamin Boyd, Esq. Amongst the shrubs along the gullies, a new species of Dodonaea, with pinnate pubescent leaves, was frequent. Towards evening we had a thunderstorm from the westward. Nov. 29.--In reconnoitring the country in the neighbourhood of the camp, I ascended three mountains, and ascertained that there are five parallel ranges, striking from north to south, of which the three easterly ones |
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