ridges,
densely wooded and often scrubby. The first part of the stage was more
hilly, and intersected by a greater number of creeks, going down to west
and north-west, than the latter part, which was a sandy, level forest of
stringy-bark and Melaleuca gum. The little gooseberry-tree (Coniogeton
arborescens, D.C.) the leguminous Ironbark, a smooth, broad-leaved
Terminalia, Calythrix, and the apple-gum, were plentiful. Livistona
inermis, R. Br. grew from twenty to thirty feet high, with a very slender
stem and small crown, and formed large groves in the stringy-bark forest.
A grass, well known at the Hunter by its scent resembling that of crushed
ants, was here scentless; a little plant, with large, white, tubular,
sweet-scented flowers, grew sociably in the forest, and received the name
of "native primrose;" a species of Commelyna, and a prostrate malvaceous
plant with red flowers, and a species of Oxystelma, contributed by their
beauty and variety to render the country interesting.

Nov. 30.--The lower part of the creek on which we were encamped was
covered with a thicket of Pandanus; but its upper part was surrounded by
groves of the Livistona palm. As our horses had been driven far from the
camp by the grey horse-fly and by a large brown fly with green eyes,
which annoyed us particularly before sunset, and shortly after sunrise,
we had to wait a long time for them, and employed ourselves, in the
meanwhile, with cutting and eating the tops of Livistona. Many were in
blossom, others were in fruit; the latter is an oblong little stone fruit
of very bitter taste. Only the lowest part of the young shoots is
eatable, the remainder being too bitter. I think they affected the bowels
even more than the shoots of the Corypha palm.

We made a short Sunday stage through a fine forest, in which Livistona
became more and more frequent. We crossed several creeks going to the
westward; the country became more hilly, and we followed a large creek
with a good supply of rainwater, until it turned too much to the
westward, when we encamped. The clear night enabled me to make my
latitude, by an observation of Castor, to be 12 degrees 21 minutes 49
seconds. We had accomplished about five miles to the northward.

We saw two emus, and Charley was fortunate enough to shoot one of them;
it was the fattest we had met with round the gulf. During the clear, dewy
night, flocks of geese and ducks passed from the west to the north-east,
and I ant