BUNYA-PINE 269 



a hasty ride across it. We retained with us one of the 

 white servants, and two of the blackfellows, and after a 

 day's rest at our last camping-place, restarted still in a 

 northerly direction. 



On the 29th my companion and myself rode in a 

 leisurely way some sixteen miles in a valley between two 

 lines of cliff-like hills from six hundred to seven hundred 

 feet high, the flat tops of which were covered with tall 

 trees, many of them bunya-pines with cones thirty inches 

 in diameter. In the valley, among other fruits we found 

 the native-cherry, celebrated all over the world for its 

 curious berry, bearing the stone outside instead of sur- 

 rounded, as usual, with the pulp. 



Half-way through this valley we crossed a gully full of 

 mud-holes, which bore signs of being a deep river in the 

 wet season. At present there was only an inch of water 

 in some of the holes ; but by digging in the mud we 

 obtained a plentiful supply. The banks of the gully were 

 ninety feet high, and the wash-line showed that the water 

 had at some time risen almost to the top. Probably after 

 heavy storms this river is a rapid torrent, flowing from 

 what appeared on a distant view to be a mountainous 

 range fifty or sixty miles to the westward of our position. 



For the first time during our journey we saw a party 

 of natives, sixy in number, with women and children. 

 They stood and watched us pass, but did not attempt to 

 approach nor to follow us. Later in the day we saw 

 twelve men, perhaps a detachment of the same tribe, 

 watching us as we passed a native sepulchral grove in 

 which about a dozen dead bodies were placed in the trees. 

 The Australian natives, like all other men, are very jealous 

 of interference with their dead; and we noticed that as 

 soon as we had passed this grove, the twelve men turned 

 and went back towards the south. 



The following day we crossed another river-bed, in 

 which there was more water than in the one described 

 above. This was evidently a branch of Mitchell's River — 

 perhaps the Lynd River. Its banks, which were steep, 

 and the country on each side, were well clothed with 



