perior manner.

NATIVE WARRAN GROUND. PLAINS ABOUNDING IN THE WARRAN PLANT.

We now crossed the dry bed of a stream and from that emerged upon a tract
of light fertile soil, quite overrun with warran plants,* the root of
which is a favourite article of food with the natives. This was the first
time we had yet seen this plant on our journey, and now for three and a
half consecutive miles we traversed a fertile piece of land literally
perforated with the holes the natives had made to dig this root; indeed
we could with difficulty walk across it on that account, whilst this
tract extended east and west as far as we could see.

(*Footnote. The Warran in a species of Dioscorea, a sort of yam like the
sweet potato. It is known by the same name both on the east and west side
of the continent.)

It was now evident that we had entered the most thickly-populated
district of Australia that I had yet observed, and moreover one which
must have been inhabited for a long series of years, for more had here
been done to secure a provision from the ground by hard manual labour
than I could have believed it in the power of uncivilised man to
accomplish. After crossing a low limestone range we came down upon
another equally fertile warran ground, bounded eastward by a high range
of rocky limestone hills, luxuriantly grassed, and westward by a low
range of similar formation. The native path about two miles further on
crossed this latter range, and we found ourselves in a grassy valley,
about four miles wide, bounded seawards by sandy downs. Along its centre
lay a chain of reedy freshwater swamps, and native paths ran in from all
quarters to one main line of communication leading to the southward.

DANGERS OF DELAY.

In these swamps we first found the yunjid, or flag (a species of typha)
and the sow-thistle of the southern districts; one we came to was a thick
tea-tree swamp, extremely picturesque, and producing abundance of these
plants, some of which were collected by the men to eat in the evening. To
my surprise Mr. Walker here came up to me and asked if I did not think it
would be better to halt for a day or two at places of this kind to allow
the men to refresh themselves. The idea of men halting and wasting their
strength and energies in searching for native food whilst they had so
fearful a journey before them, and no supplies, appeared to me to be
preposterous in the extreme: to obtain a sufficiency of food, even for a
native,