The horses however were still in the rear, and I was ultimately
obliged to send assistance to them. At 1 p.m. Mr. Poole and Mr. Stuart
rejoined us. Two of our kangaroo dogs had followed them from Cawndilla,
but one only returned, the other fell exhausted on the plains. Mr. Poole
informed me that he had seen, but lost sight of Flood's signal fire, and
had therefore slept higher up on the creek. The animals, but the cart
horses in particular, were still very weak when we left Curnapaga, on the
30th, nor is it probable we should have got them to the long water-hole
if we had not fortunately stumbled on another little pool of water in a
lateral creek about half way. After breakfasting here, we moved leisurely
on, and reached our destination at half-past five, p.m. Sullivan shot a
beautiful and new hawk (ELANUS SCRIPTUS, Gould), which does not appear to
extend farther south than where we here met it, although it wanders over
the whole of the north-west interior as far as we went. There were some
beautiful plants also growing in the bed of the creek; but we had
previously met with so few things that we might here be said to have
commenced our collection.
At this water-hole, "Parnari," we surprised three natives who were
strangers. They did not betray any fear, but slept at the tents and left
us the following day, as they said to bring more natives to visit us, but
we never saw anything more of them.
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