Field’s plains.

To the westward I beheld the view etched in Mr. Oxley’s book as Field’s Plains; and what was of much more importance to me then, Mounts Cunningham, Melville, Allan, etc. etc. on all which, as far as I could, I took angles, and then descending, rejoined the party about six miles on.  I met at the foot of this hill a colonist, a native of the country.* He said he had been seventy miles down the river in search of a run for his cattle; but had found none; and he assured me that, without the aid of the blacks who were with him on horseback, he could not have obtained water.

(Footnote.  Mr. James Collits of Mount York.)

Mount Amyot had the appearance of granite from the plains, but I found that it consisted of the ferruginous sandstone.  It is the southern extremity of a long ridge elevated not more than 200 feet above the plains at its base.  We encamped at a bend of the river, on the border of a small plain named Merumba in latitude 33 degrees 19 minutes 16 seconds South.  Variation 8 degrees 54 minutes 15 seconds East.

We were here disturbed by herds of cattle running towards our spare bullocks and mixing with them and the horses.  In no district have I seen cattle so numerous as all along the Lachlan; and notwithstanding the very dry season, they were nearly all in good condition.  We found this day, near the river bed, a new herbaceous indigo with white flowers and pods like those of the prickly liquorice (Glycyrrhiza echinata).*

(Footnote.  I. acantho carpa, Lindley manuscripts; caule herbaceo erecto ramisque angulatis scabriusculis, foliis pinnatis 5-jugis viscido-pubescentibus; foliolis lineari-lanceolatis mucronulatis margine scabris, racemis folio aequalibus, leguminibus subrotundo-ovalibus compressis mucronatis echinatis monospermis.)

March 29.

Our next point was Mount Cunningham (Beery birree of the natives) and we travelled towards it along the margin of Field’s Plains as the angles of the river allowed.

CRACKS IN THE SURFACE.

This was our straightest course, but we had to keep along the riverbank for another reason.  The plains were full of deep cracks and holes so that the cart wheels more than once sunk into them, and thus detained us for nearly an hour.  A sagacious black advised us to keep near the riverbank, and we found the ground better.  We encamped at half-past two o’clock, after a journey of ten miles; and I immediately set out, accompanied by a native and a man carrying my theodolite, both on horseback, for the highest or northern point of Mount Cunningham (a).  The distance was full five miles; yet we could not proceed direct on horseback, the scorched plains being full of deep, wide cracks; and we were therefore compelled to take a circuitous route nearer the river.

ASCEND MOUNT CUNNINGHAM.