480 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



east and south-east for 3 miles, we camped on the left bank of 

 a brook near the base of the range. (CAMP 18 : bloodwood, 

 broad-arrow, J. 18.) The country passed over in this day's march 

 was all slate, the slates being capped to the right and left of our 

 course by horizontal beds of sandstone. 



About eleven o'clock at night, Macdonald and the two black 

 boys heard one of the horses neigh suspiciously and (as they believed) 

 they heard a black fellow among the horses signalling to his com- 

 panions by a low whistle. On the alarm being given, we fired a 

 shot in the air to apprise the visitors that we were armed and 

 on the watch. The night was so dark that a sally would have been 

 useless. Perhaps the shot had the desired effect, for we found the 

 horses unhurt in the morning. The blacks in the Endeavour 

 and Mclvor country have a bad reputation, their weakness for 

 horseflesh rendering them undesirable neighbours. 



On the morning of iqth August, we struck out eastward for a 

 " bald " rise about 3 miles off evidently one of the volcanic 

 centres. We expected to be able to discover from this rise some 

 gap in the sandstone range, but we were unable to reach it, having 

 to turn back with one horse lamed and the rest " cowed " by the 

 attempted passage over what appeared, at first sight, an easy grassy 

 plain. This turned out to be marshy " devil-devil " country 

 probably a lake in wet weather -a network of boggy ditches, with 

 the intervening dry stools of clay covered with coarse rank grass, 

 through which it was very difficult to push one's way even on foot. 



1 concluded that nothing but very urgent business would warrant 

 my forcing a passage through this sort of country. Between the 

 devil-devil and the sand-hills of the coast, the NATIVES were busy 

 burning the grass. 



Having retraced our steps to near the precipitous cliffs of the 

 sandstone range, we skirted the latter for about 3 miles to the 

 north and 4 to the west-north-west, when we passed through a 

 gap and dropped down into a fair valley, about a mile in width, 

 opening out to the north. We camped on the right bank of a 

 creek of the third magnitude, 1 dry with the exception of a few 

 water-holes. (CAMP 19 : bloodwood, marked broad arrow, J. 19. 79.) 

 The valley, although it was not the rich soil and luxuriant grasses 

 of the Mclvor, has a fair patch of level grassy country about 



2 miles in length and a mile broad. [A river in the Starcke Gold- 

 field which was subsequently opened. Later on, this river was 

 named the " RUNNING STARCKE " by the diggers. It is not the 

 river named the STARCKE by me. R. L. J.] 



1 Some system of classifying creeks being absolutely necessary, I divide them into 

 four " magnitudes." The first comes next to a river, while the fourth is a brook. The 

 magnitude refers to the place where the creek is crossed or described. A fourth or third 

 magnitude creek may, of course, become a river if followed down. [I still think the 

 suggestion was a good one, but it was not adopted by any other describers of new country, 

 xcept J. T. Embley, J. R. Bradford and James Dick. R. L. J.] 



