FIRST EXPEDITION 489 



August 30. All the horses have much improved at this camp 

 except two of the packers (Billy and Queensland) ; Billy, in fact, 

 looks more wretched than ever. I fancy he has eaten some POISON 

 BUSH. 



We left Camp 26 and held our way up the right bank of the 

 Normanby (S. i6i E., true). We soon entered on a low, flat 

 country, and our path lay across this for 3 miles. In the wet season, 

 when the river overflows, this flat must stand as a lake for some 

 months. The trees (melaleuca and Moreton Bay ash) were crusted 

 with fine muddy sediment over our heads as we rode. The 

 soil was a stiff dry-baked clay. This is evidently the very place 

 where Hann struck the river when he discovered it in 1872.* In a 

 mile and a half more on the same course, over undulating country, 

 we came to a low ridge from which we could see a sandstone range 

 about 10 miles to the east. This range was visible from the sand- 

 stone hill I ascended on the 27th. 



In 3 miles more, on the same course, we passed a broad swamp 

 on the right, alive with geese. 



Four miles more, over rather flat country, recently burnt, 

 with large bloodwood and box trees, with recent conglomerate 

 occasionally visible, brought us again to the Normanby. We 

 camped on some fine new feed between the river and a chain of 

 lagoons (CAMP 27). Although this camp is higher up the river 

 than that of the previous day, the river is four times as wide a 

 truly magnificent sheet of water. 



August 31. Leaving Camp 27, we continued up the right 

 bank of the Normanby a broad sheet of deep water flanked by 

 scrubby alluvial flats. Our course lay ENE. for I mile, SE. I mile, 

 and E. (magnetic) I mile. At this point there are rapids with a 

 drop of about 6 feet over a recent conglomerate or " cement " 

 bed. Above the fall the sheet of water is at least a quarter of a 

 mile in breadth. The banks are lower than below the fall, but 

 except on the marshes and lake bottoms we passed yesterday there 

 is no sign of the country being subject to floods. Just above the 

 fall the skeleton of a crocodile was found on the top of the bank. 

 In I mile more (magnetic east) we left the Normanby * and followed 

 up a branch of the river for I mile further to magnetic east, 4 miles 

 to magnetic south-east, I mile east (true), and I mile magnetic 

 north-east. By this time it became evident that we had left the 

 main river and were following a tributary rising far to the east and 

 draining the south side of the sandstone mountains which we had 

 lately crossed. The creek had a rapidly running stream equal in 



1 A mistake. His Camp 39, on the Nonnanby, was about 7 miles north of my 

 Camp 25. R. L. J. 



* A mistake. We did not really leave the Normanby River here, but continued 

 up the right bank, passing the mouth of the Kennedy, which I took to be the Normanby. 

 We actually left the Normanby about a mile above the mouth of the Kennedy, which 

 falls into its left bank, and followed up the " Jack River." R. L. J. 



II 10 



