596 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



about 10 miles north of the camp where the MESSRS. JARDINE, 

 in 1865, first met with the country which they describe as " FRIGHT- 

 FULLY BAD " and " FEARFULLY DIFFICULT," and we began to flatter 

 ourselves that we were to be more fortunate than they, our course 

 being on the eastern and theirs on the western side of the escarp- 

 ment of the RICHARDSON RANGE. 



The following day, we picked our way for 8$ miles, in TORRENTS 

 OF RAIN, as nearly north as the circumstances permitted, down or 

 across the heads of gullies falling to the north-east. We saw 

 SCARCELY A BLADE OF GRASS in the day's stage. To avoid the BOGS 

 we had to take to the HEATHY BRUSHWOOD, through which a path 

 had to be cut for the horses. We camped on a gully in a little 

 patch of forest country, on very coarse grass worse than any that 

 our horses had yet met with. (CAMP 50.) 



Having settled in camp, Mr. Crosbie and I ascended a scrubby 

 sandstone hill to the east of the camp. We found the east side of 

 the hill masked by ridges of BLOWN SAND which extended to the 

 coast, a distance of not less then 10 miles. The MACARTHUR 

 ISLANDS lay due east. To NNE. we could see the RICHARDSON 

 RANGE [?], its escarpment trending from NNE. to SSW., and 

 apparently covered with DENSE BLACK SCRUB. The intervening 

 country was bleak and wretched in the extreme BOG, HEATH and 

 BRUSHWOOD. It required some courage to face the task of forcing 

 our way through such a land. At our feet lay a dark, circular 

 LAKE, enclosed among SAND-HILLS : its outlet was traceable for some 

 distance to the north and north-west, when it fell into a creek run- 

 ning north-east. Mr. Crosbie had seen one NATIVE during the day, 

 and from the scrubby hill we made out the smokes of several 

 camp fires among the sand-hills. 



On ist March we travelled 9! miles, nearly due north. RAIN 

 began as we left, and for half the day some of the heaviest showers 

 of the wet season aggravated our difficulties with brushwood, bog 

 and heath. The escarpment of the RICHARDSON RANGE [?] could 

 sometimes be seen a mile or two to the west. Several small creeks 

 were crossed draining to the east. We camped at nightfall on the 

 first grass we had seen since midday, on a spur of the range. (CAMP 

 51.) Our route this day probably coincided for the most part with 

 that of the Brothers Jardine. [It was a few miles east of the 

 Jardines' route. R. L. J.] 



Hoping to find on the tableland better travelling than on the 

 heathy shelf below, we sidled up the hills on the morning of 

 2nd March. We were cruelly disappointed, as it turned out a day 

 of severe toil. We had no sooner reached the top of the tableland 

 than we had to begin cutting our way through DENSE SCRUB (cypress 

 pine and vine), and this continued, with little intermission, for the 

 remainder of the day, the exceptions being narrow steep-banked 

 BOGGY CREEKS, one of which had to be BRIDGED over. The course 



