3l8 DESERT HILL GRASS. 



become dry. Sometimes, however, by sinking a hole 

 in the beds of these places, a certain quantity of 

 water may still be found sufficient perhaps to suffice 

 for immediate wants. 



But as regards the critical operation of seeking for, 

 and finding water on these occasions, the various ex- 

 pedients that have been resorted to by travellers would 

 occupy too much space to enable us to do justice to such 

 a subject here. 



Leaving therefore the question of the water-supply, 

 let us confine our attention to the vegetation in these 

 districts, when they have become, it may be, almost 

 waterless, until the return of the rains. 



It is remarkable, that except in barren tracts of 

 actual desert, throughout the Bush Country proper, 

 there are usually at all times, fair, and often ample 

 resources, in the way of dried grasses, for pasturage 

 purposes: long grass in the fertile and low-lying dis- 

 tricts ; and short grass upon the high plains and barren 

 lands. The herbage of these latter very generally 

 consists of grasses containing much nourishment in 

 small bulk, and possessing qualities which render them, 

 though they may be coarse in appearance, invaluable as 

 forage plants. So that travellers whose cattle may have 

 suffered materially in condition while crossing the 

 barren sandy tracts, usually find their animals rapidly 

 pick up flesh when they enter the bush region, if only 

 water can be found. 



The whole experience of the Australians goes to 

 prove the accuracy of this view ; large areas of country 

 long regarded as " irreclaimable desert " having been 

 already converted into highly profitable cattle ranges, 

 in different parts of Australia, by the simple expedient 



