Australasiatic Reminiscences of Twenty Three-Years' Wanderings in Tasmania and the Australias; Including Travels with Dr. Leichhardt in North or Tropi (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ... this creek we travelled in a direction bearing to the left, and found large clusters of the Daviesia latifolia, or native hop; and wherever this plant was common, the neighborhood abounded in crab-holes. We soon reached what was afterwards called Thomson's Station (now Frencham's), near the Anderson's Creek diggings. We camped here for the night, and, after travelling a few miles the following day in the direction of the ranges, learned that peaceful overtures had been made by the Plenty blacks, and accepted by our advanced plenipotentiaries; we again returned to Thomson's Station, and from thence commenced our final return to the settlement. Passing through the scrubby ground and thinly-timbered and undulating country about Heidelberg, we reached the settlement, after an absence of a few days. We shall now endeavour to vary our narrative with the results of our travels with Dr. Leichhardt, in the north-eastern tropical portions of the tropics of the Colony. CHAPTER IX. NARRATIVE OF DR. Leichhardt's EXPEDITION: ITS OBJECT BEING TO EXPLORE THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA, TO DISCOVER THE EXTENT OF STDRT's DESERT, AND THE CHARACTER OF THE WESTERN AND NORH-WESTERN COAST, AND TO OBSERVE THE GRADUAL CHANGE IN VEGETATION AND ANIMAL LIFE, FROM ONE SIDE OF THE CONTINENT TO THE OTHER. Dr. Leichhardt did not expect to be able to accomplish this overland journey to Swan River in less than two years and a half. He purposed to travel over his old route as far as Peak Ranges, and then to shape his course westward; but thought it not impossible, as his course depended on water, that he should be obliged to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria, and follow up some river to its source. It now becomes our duty to let our readers know with what success these intentions...