348 DR. LEICHARDT'S OVERLAND JOURNEY 
its whole course well supplied with water. The country was 
openly timbered, and well grassed, and at the lower part of 
the Lynd and parallel to the Mitchell, were very large and 
deep ponds in which a species of Nymphæa grew and around 
which the pasture was particularly rich. The rivers within 
the tropics are almost all remarkable for the immense width 
of their beds, which are filled with sand, with the exception 
of those spots in which the naked rock cropped out. They 
were overgrown with small trees, and the number and size of 
the latter depends upon the frequency and strength of those 
rushes of water which occasionally sweep down. The Upper 
Lynd was, for instance, covered with trees, whilst the bed of 
the Mitchell was entirely free from them. It was near this 
latter river that the only serious casualty occurred to the 
expedition viz: the death of Mr. Gilbert the naturalist who 
was speared by the natives in a night attack, and two others 
of the party were wounded. They observed watermarks fif- 
teen and eighteen feet above the level of the bed of the river 
evidently showing that a large body of water flows down to 
the sea in, perhaps, unusually rainy seasons. In finding — * 
these large channels, either dry or with small streams, odw- 
sionally lost in the loose sands, are we then to suppose that 
the power of the floods which formed them was fo * 
greater than at present, and that the decrease of moisture, 
which has been remarked by the old inhabitants of the 
_colony, has equally taken place in the tropics ? Analogy 
certainly justifies such a conclusion. Large tracts of country | 
on the east coast of the Gulf were covered with box a 
species of Eucalyptus), and with a small tea-tree with broad 
. lane es, These trees generally indicated a stiff soil, 
em which i in the a country was never free from shallow holes, 
= = such as are called melon-holes by the squatters, formed, no 
_ doubt, by the infiltrating rain and standing water. In many 
of these holes were found dead crabs, and even fresh-water 
_ turtles, and many shells, which also proved that long : 
had prevailed and res these animale... : Another À feature 
