74 
SANDY PLAINS. 
though precarious subsistence ; but that they had at length 
been forced from it. Neither fish nor muscles remained in 
the creek, nor emus nor kangaroos on the plains. How 
then could an European expect to find food in deserts 
through which the savage wandered in vain ? There is no 
doubt of the fate that would have overtaken any one of the 
party who might have strayed away, and I was happy to 
find that Norman’s narrow escape had made a due impres- 
sion on the minds of his comrades. 
We passed some considerable plains, lying to the east- 
ward of the creek, on parts of which the grass, though 
growing in tufts, was of luxuriant growth. They were, 
however, more generally covered with salsola and rhagodia, 
and totally destitute of other vegetation, the soil upon them 
being a red sandy loam. The paths across the plains, 
which varied in breadth from three to eight miles, were nu- 
merous; but they had not been recently trodden. The 
creek continued to have a thick brush of casuarina and 
acacia near it, to the westward of which there was a rising 
open forest track ; the timber upon it being chiefly box, 
cypress, and the acacia longifolia. It was most probably 
connected with New Year’s Range, those elevations being 
about thirty miles distant. It terminated in some gentle 
hills which, though covered in places with acacia shrub, were 
sufficiently open to afford an extensive view. From their 
summit Oxley’s Table Land, towards which we had been 
gradually working our way, was distinctly visible, distant 
about twenty miles, and bearing by compass W. by S. On 
