Just as we halted we saw a small column of smoke rise up due south, and
on looking in that direction observed some grassy plains spreading out
like a boundless stubble, the grass being of the kind from which the
natives collect seed for subsistence at this season of the year.
Early on the morning of the 14th March we again saw smoke in the same
direction as before, but somewhat to the eastward, as if the grass or
brush had been fired. In hopes that we should come upon some of the
natives on the plains, through which the creek appeared to run, I
determined on examining them before I proceeded to the eastward. We
accordingly crossed its channel when we mounted our horses after
breakfast, and rode at some little distance from it on a course of 80
degrees or nearly east, over flooded lands of somewhat sandy soil,
covered with different kinds of grass, of which large heaps that had been
thrashed out by the natives were piled up like hay cocks. At about two
and a half miles we ascended a sandy rise of about fifty feet in
elevation, whence we obtained bearings of the little conical hill at the
western termination of the plain, and of the hill we had called the Black
Hill. These bearings with our latitude made the distance we had travelled
33 miles. From the sand hill we overlooked plains of great extent to the
N.E.; partly grassed and partly bare, but to the eastward there was low
brush and a country similar to that we had traversed before the
commencement of the sandy ridges.
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