Bokhara, on the West, a river shown on the map sent me by the
Commissioner of the district, but after travelling about seven miles to
the northward, I saw rising ground before me, which induced me to turn
towards our own friendly river the Narran; but it proved to be very far
from us, while in my search for it, to my surprise, I found it necessary
to descend several considerable declivities, covered with waterworn
pebbles. At length a slight opening in the dense scrubs through which we
had forced our way, afforded a view towards the south-east of the low
range we were upon, which trended very continuously to the north-west,
covered thickly with the "Malga" tree of the natives; to the traveller
the most formidable of scrubs. After several other descents, we reached
the Narran, but only at half-past three in the afternoon, when we had
travelled nearly twenty miles. How the teams were to accomplish this, it
was painful to consider. I sent back a messenger to desire that the
cattle should be detached and brought forward to the water; content to
lose one day, if that indeed would suffice to recover the jaded animals.
Casuarinae now grew amongst the river trees, and reminded me of the banks
of the Karaula in 1831. We had also noticed another novelty in the woods
we passed through this day; a small clump of trees of iron-bark with a
different kind of leaf from that of the tree known by that name in the
colony. On the higher stony land, a bush was common, and proved to be a
broad-leaved variety of EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII, if not a distinct species.
We there met with a new species of the rare and little-known genus,
GEIJERA; forming a strong-scented shrub, about ten feet high, and having
long, narrow, drooping leaves. Its fruit had a weak, peppery taste.[*]
The rare ENCHYLOENA TOMENTOSA formed a shrub a foot high, loaded with
yellow berries: all the specimens were digynous, in which it differed
from the description of Brown. The CAPPARIS LASIANTHA was observed
amongst the climbing shrubs still in fruit; and a beautiful new LORANTH,
with red flowers tipped with green, was parasitical on trees.[**] On the