1^6 Hardy, The Mallee : Ouyen to Pinnaroo. [v^oTx^^x 



colours, but somewhat novel in these circumstances. Other 

 fiats were not so monopolized, the pig-face giving room to 

 Kochia, Atriplex, and Sahcornia. 



At One-tree Plain the horses were hobbled and allowed to 

 graze on the good grass, and we tore abundant bedding from 

 the giant hop-bushes and turpentine, and were soon asleep. 



At 4.30 next morning we were up, and, after a light and 

 hasty breakfast, began a ride of 22 miles through more 

 untrodden country to reach a point on Sunset Track where 

 there might be water in a log tank, and where also the buggy 

 might reach from Underbool with horse-feed and provisions. 

 This ride revealed patches of good land, undulating and flat, 

 but most of it poor, and some of a desert nature, with 

 much sand-hill and Porcupine. About half-way through we 

 came on fine groves of Belar, and suspected water in the 

 neighbourhood, but found none. Here we lunched on short 

 rations, and limited ourselves to one mouthful each of water 

 from the rapidly flattening saddle-bags, hardening our hearts 

 meanwhile against the whinnying of the thirsty horses, which, 

 however, got some grass in the neighbourhood of the Belar. 

 Again in the saddle, we crossed more sand-hills, carrying 

 stunted eucalyptus, she-pine (a name given to the dwarfed 

 specimens of Callitris rohusta, var. verrucosa, common in such 

 situations), and Melaleuca uncinata, BcBckea Behrii, Grevillea 

 pterosperma, Casuarina distyla. Acacia salicina, Hakea leucoptera, 

 Fusanus persicarius, &c., pausing on every eminence to search 

 the horizon with field-glasses and take bearings. A higher 

 sand-hill than the rest seemed to me to be as low, or less, than 

 neighbours when once it was ascended, and about on all sides 

 there seemed a billowing sea of sand clothed irregularly with 

 vegetation. Few photographs were taken, and the note-book 

 rather neglected, as we could not afford time for the pictures, 

 and a horse that insisted on jumping even small " Porcupines " 

 precluded the other. Towards evening we reached Sunset 

 Track (while behind us to the horizon smoked the trail which 

 we had marked by dropping lighted matches into the Porcupine- 

 grass tussocks) and found water in a shallow clay-hole and in 

 a log-tank ; but the latter was avoided, because of the evidence 

 of drowned rabbits, and the clay-hole of yellow water was 

 about to be resorted to when fresh water was found in a 

 kerosene tin that had been concealed in a shady corner of the 

 log-tank for us. Before the discovery was made, however, one of 

 the party had drunk of the clay water with the horses, which 

 slaked a thirst that had accumulated since the previous after- 

 noon, and for this he suffered two days later. Later, on 

 searching, we found bags containing horse-feed tied to the 

 branches of the mallee, and knew that the buggy had been, 



