June 19.

A thick haze came on, with an extremely cold wind from the south-west; and as it was necessary to look well before me in this part of our journey, I gave the men and cattle the benefit of a day’s rest.  The river was so shallow that it seemed almost possible to step across it; and no deep reaches appeared in its bed.  This probably was the reason why no natives were in the vicinity, as in such deep parts only can they find fish.  The quantity of water continued the same as when we first came on the river 120 miles higher up.

GRASS PULLED AND PILED IN RICKS BY THE NATIVES.

In the neighbourhood of our camp the grass had been pulled to a very great extent, and piled in hay-ricks so that the aspect of the desert was softened into the agreeable semblance of a hay-field.  The grass had evidently been thus laid up by the natives, but for what purpose we could not imagine.  At first I thought the heaps were only the remains of encampments, as the aborigines sometimes sleep on a little dry grass; but when we found the ricks, or haycocks, extending for miles we were quite at a loss to understand why they had been made.  All the grass was of one kind, a new species of Panicum related to P. effusum R. Br.* and not a spike of it was left in the soil over the whole of the ground.  A cucurbitaceous plant had also been pulled up and accumulated in smaller heaps; and from some of the roots the little yam had been taken, but on others it remained.  The surface, naturally soft, thus appeared as bare as a fallow field.  I found a pole about 20 feet long, with a forked end, set upright by having one end planted in the ground and fixed by many sticks and pieces of old stumps from the river.  As the natives erect similar poles on the banks of the Darling to stretch their nets on for taking ducks it is probable that the heaps of grass had been pulled here for some purpose connected with the allurement of birds or animals.

(Footnote.  P. laevinode, Lindley manuscripts; panicula composita contracta capillari, ramis pedicellisque flexuosis, spiculis acutis glabris, gluma exteriore rotundata laxa:  interiore 5-nervi, foliis vaginis geniculisque glabris laevibus.)

HILLS BEYOND THE DARLING.

June 20.

The morning was fine but a heavy dew had fallen during the night.  We proceeded across ground quite open, herbless, and so very soft that even my horse waded through it with difficulty.  At length we gained some gentle rises at the base of which the soil was a clay, so tenacious as to have hollows in its surface which, during wet seasons, had evidently retained water for a considerable time.  A fine hill, apparently connected with a range extending northward, at length became visible beyond the right bank of the river and, as I had previously observed in one or two similar cases, the Darling took a westerly turn towards the hill, so that this day’s journey was not much to the south of west.  On one of the low eminences