A fine sugar plantation now stands on “Bellenden Plains,” with superb cane growing in unwonted luxuriance, and horses and cattle have taken the place of the kangaroos, that we on this first visit found grazing there in troops.  In the distance could be seen the coast range behind Cardwell, which seemed to recede inland as it trended towards our position, and sweeping round, approached the sea again farther north, forming a natural boundary to a vast space of available country.  A silver line shone out on the mountains, and with our glasses we could make out that it must be a waterfall of very large dimensions.  We at once agreed that it must be the source of the very river we were on, the Macalister, but, as the sequel will show, we found so many streams, that most probably we were mistaken in our judgment.  We resolved to make this charming spot our head-quarters for the present, as we had everything to be desired —­ water, game, etc. —­ close at hand, and, from the absence of timber, no blacks would be able to steal upon us unperceived.

Leaving the pilot and one man in charge of the boat, we trudged along through the high grass, which reached to our middles, and was dripping with moisture from a shower that had fallen during the night; and, after a tedious walk, reached the edge of the scrub.  It was thicker than anything we had encountered before, the density of the foliage totally excluding the sun, and giving rise to a dank humid odour that struck a chill to the heart directly you entered.  We wound along the path, or rather track, that the blacks had made, with the greatest difficulty.  It was all very well for the troopers, who had stripped, but our clothes hitched up on a thorn at every other step.  One of our most provoking enemies was the lawyer vine, a kind of rattan enclosed in a rough husk, covered with thousands of crooked prickles.  These, with their outer covering, are about an inch and a quarter in diameter, and extend to an enormous distance, running up to the tops of lofty trees, and from thence either descending or pushing onward, or festooning themselves from stem to stem in graceful curves of indescribable beauty.  From the joints of the parent shoot are thrown out little slender tendrils, no thicker than a wire, but of great length, and as dangerously armed as their larger relation.  These miserable little wretches seem always on the watch to claw hold of something, and if you are unhappy enough to be caught, and attempt to disengage yourself by struggling, fresh tendrils appear always to lurk in ambush, ready to assist their companion, who already holds you in his grasp.  I have measured the length of one of these canes, and found it over 250 paces; and this is not the maximum to which they attain, for I have been assured by men employed in cutting a telegraph road through the scrub that they had found some over 300 yards long.  They seem to retain the same circumference throughout their whole length, and, as the bushman puts everything to some use, the lawyer is divested of his husk, and takes the place of wire in fencing, being rove through the holes bored in the posts as though they were ropes.  It is almost needless to add that this cane derives its ‘soubriquet’ of “lawyer” from the difficulty experienced in getting free if once caught in its toils.