order
Apocyneae, with alternate, exstipulate, broad, lanceolate leaves, six to
eight inches long, and producing terminal spikes of large, white,
sweet-scented flowers, resembling those of the white Nerium oleander, but
much larger. I also met with a tree about twenty feet high belonging to
the natural order Dilleniaceae, with large spreading branches, producing
at the axilla of the leaves from three to five large yellow flowers, with
a row of red appendages surrounding the carpels, and a fine species of
Calophyllum, with large dark green leaves, six to eight inches long, two
and a half to three inches broad, beautifully veined, and with axillary
racemes of white, sweet-scented flowers; the seed being a large round nut
with a thin rind, of a yellowish-green colour when ripe. There were many
other interesting plants growing about, but the afternoon turning out
wet, I left their examination to stand over till finer weather.

Growing on the beach was a species of Portulaca, a quantity of the young
shoots of which I collected, and we partook of them at our supper, boiled
as a vegetable.

In the evening after watering our horses, we took them to the camp and
gave each of them a feed of corn which we had brought with us for the
purpose of strengthening them previous to our starting from Rockingham
Bay, on our expedition; but although the grass on which they had been
depasturing was coarse, they were with difficulty induced to eat the
corn, many of them leaving it almost all behind them. We then tethered
them and folded our sheep, one of which we killed for food. The ration
per week on which the party was now put, was one hundred pounds of flour,
twenty-six pounds of sugar, three and a half pounds of tea, with one
sheep every alternate day.

This night too we commenced our nightly watch, the whole of the stores
being landed and packed in the camp. During nearly the whole of the day a
tribe of natives was watching our movements, but they seemed to be quite
peaceably inclined; the weather was very cold, and at night the rain set
in and continued to fall, almost without intermission, till morning.

The next morning (May 26th) was very wet and cold; but after securing our
horses, I again went out to search for, and examine plants, although it
was too rainy to collect seeds or specimens. On a Casuarina near the
swamp, I saw a beautiful Loranthus with rather small oval leaves,
panicles of flowers, with the tube of the corolla gre