562 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 
and is mostly far short of that distance. The character of the country 
is locally termed “ Quota ole en ” or “ San dp lain/’ The meaning 
attached to this word “ Quowcken ” by the aboriginal natives is simply 
an open plain without timber, and would equally apply to clear, grassy 
plains; whereas a European only applies it to these extensive scrubby 
plaius, thus giving it a special significance. A singular feature 
throughout the quowckens of the rainbelt are the numbers of yate 
and yawl swamps. Occasionally a swamp will be found where 
only one of these trees is represented, but usually both are more or 
less mixed. Generally these swamps have grass in them, affording 
camps for travellers and shepherds. The soil of the quowckens at 
first sight appears to be sand, but closer inspection will show it to be 
a poor sandy loam, though there are extensive tracts of pure sand in 
many places. After heavy rains the whole country is covered with 
water for miles and miles, the water lying on the sides and tops of 
the hills as well as on the flats, because the tussocky nature of the 
scrub, rushes, and coarse grass offers so much more resistance than 
finer grasses that the water is impounded for the time. I think 
many of the flats and swamps should grow flax, and, if the heat 
be sufficient, rice. At any rate in some future day these same 
quowckens will have a far greater value than at present, for they now 
possess a magnificent climate, a grand rainfall, and a clay bottom ; 
they only require cleaning, sweetening, and manuring to become a 
most fertile territory. A peculiarity of the gullies and watercourses 
here, by courtes} r called rivers and creeks, are the noble banks they 
have. The quowckens , though undulating, present a very level 
appearance, and a traveller will without notice suddenly find himself 
on the summit of a liill, while 100 feet or more below him runs a 
beautiful grassy valley, and opposite him another steep hill, the top of 
which is again the quoweken ; in the bottom of the valley is the gutter 
in which, for eight or nine months of the year, a tiny stream of 
generally salt water is trickling; but in most of such creeks strong 
soaks exist, so that fresh water can be obtained by sinkiug two feet or 
three feet often quite close to the salt water of the creek. About once 
in twenty years an exceptional season occurs, and then these streamlets 
become for a few days rushing torrents, tearing out trees, rocks, and 
everything opposing their course ; sweeping away sandbars and 
hummocks which have formed at their mouths, and so for a few days 
run into the sea ; blit as their entire course rarely exceeds five miles, 
it is only a flash, and then the sand fills in again, and the torrent 
becomes a trickling gutter. The same grassy valleys of these creeks 
have splendid soil, and would grow luxuriant crops of all kinds. Ten 
thousand pities they are not more extensive. East from Point 
Malcolm, and equidistant from it and Israelite Bay, a rocky hill 
appears to rear itself right out of the ocean ; this is the hill on 
Christmas Island. This island, with the Caterpillar Beef, Kassels 
Bock (an islet off Israelite), and a few other rocks and isles are the 
eastern termination of Becherche Archipelago, and 50 miles south of 
Point Malcolm the islets attain their southern limit in “ Pollock’s Keef, 
the dread of mariners. So these beautiful aud interesting islands are 
dotted all over the ocean for about 150 miles in length by 50 miles in 
breadth. Many are extremely fertile; some abound with Tammur , 
some have rabbits, some are the haunt of the wild goose, and nearly 
