Running
the creek down at three and a half miles we were again attracted by a
number of birds, pigeons, the rose cockatoo, the crested paroquet, and a
variety of others flying round a clump of trees at no great distance from
us, but they were exceedingly wild and watchful. We found a pool under,
or rather shaded by the trees, of tolerable size, and much better than
the water nearer to the hills. Close to it also, on a sloping bank, there
was another more than half finished hut from which the natives could only
just have retreated, for they had left all their worldly goods behind
them; thus it appeared we had scared these poor people a second time from
their work. I was really sorry for the trouble we had unintentionally
given them, and in order to make up for it, I fastened my own knife with
a glittering blade, to the top of a spear that stood upright in front of
the hut; not without hopes that the owner of the weapon seeing we
intended them no harm, would come to us on our return from the hills.
Below this water-hole the creek sensibly diminished. Crossing and
abandoning it we struck away to the N.W. At about half a mile we entered
the scrub, which had indeed commenced from the water, but which at that
distance became thick. We were then in a perfect desert, from the scrub
we got on barren sandy flats, bounded at first by sandy ridges at some
little distance from each other, but the formation soon changed, and the
sand ridges succeeded each other like waves of the sea.
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