'igu'] Hardy, The Mallee : Ouyen to Pinnaroo. 159 



At 9.30 we were in a line basin to the south-west of Mount 

 Gnarr, where, in a shallow catchment, we found water, with 

 Cane-grass and Nardoo. Here were signs of improved water 

 storage — old but unmistakable traces — and we felt we were on 

 the eve of further discovery. The depression was fringed with 

 mallee scrub and pine. Ascending the further rim, we came 

 upon the old ruins of a hut and pine-log yards, with abundant 

 thistles, and sheep-droppings in and about the place. Here 

 was. about 30 years ago perhaps, an out-station of a homestead 

 on the Murray, but abandoned through failure of the water 

 supply. " Old hut and yards" was the name for a point on 

 the Sunset Track where we had camped the previous night, 

 and where, according to legend, some ruins had once been seen. 

 Evidently we had chanced upon the actual spot. Soon we 

 were on Mount Gnarr, from which, at above sea-level height of 

 about 300 feet, but about 200 feet above the general level near 

 base, we had a fine view of hundreds of square miles of country 

 — a billowy sea of mottled colour, mostly green and grey-green 

 — the former for pine belts, when darker, and for mallee when 

 less dark and rich, with a drab colour for the two species of 

 Casuarina (C. lepidophloia and C. Luehmaumi), Belar and 

 Buloke, and grey-green for the most of the other trees and 

 shrubs, with here and there bare sand of the rises gleaming 

 between and advertising the desert nature of the locality. 

 The horizon was almost lost in haze, but an irregularly 

 undulating limit to the light blue could be made out, and after 

 much consultation one less indefinite point was located as 

 Walpeup neighbourhood, and another as the point beyond 

 which lay Underbool. Mount Gnarr is sparsely covered with 

 deep-rooted, harsh-leaved shrubs, such as Acacia salicina and 

 Hakea leucoptera, and, nearer the base, stunted eucalyptus 

 and dwarfed pine. Some of the mount is bare sand. 

 Descending, we rode back southerly to another point on Sunset 

 Track, across some good cultivable country of low sandy, 

 alternating with nearly flat loamy, land, well vegetated. This 

 point is on Cheeses Plain, where there is much visible limestone 

 or kopi over an area some miles across, and near b}/ is Double 

 Tanks (called so for a reason implied by the name) ; and, after 

 traversing some more undulating country of sandy nature 

 bearing she-pine and much Eucalyptus incrassata, the latter 

 with abundant bloom and copious nectar (surely a good bee- 

 tree), and acacia, &c., we reached the camp of the boring party 

 in charge of Mr. Scarce at Underbool, where we were made 

 comfortable for the night. 



From Underbool we drove through a luxuriance of pine, 

 eucalyptus, and melaleuca, with Acacia salicina, A. brachybotrya, 

 and Cassia eremophila, &c., forming an under-shrubbery, along 



