Excoecaria: A good-sized bush or small tree occupying the low depressions
above the saline alluvial ground on the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is
milk-flowing but poisonous.
Erythrina: or coral tree.
Pigweed: Portulaca, or the native purslane, a creeping annual of a
reddish-green colour and an excellent vegetable.
Triodia: Sometimes called spinifex, or porcupine grass, is a true desert
plant, and at the end of each leaf it is so armed with short prickles
that horses dread going through it, and stock never touch it except when
it is very young or they are starving.
Gidya: A native name; the botanical name cannot be given without a
specimen.
Western-wood Acacia: Same as Gidya.
Roley-poley: An annual salsolaceous plant. It grows in the form of a
large ball, several feet high, on rich soil. It withers in the dry
season, is easily broken off and rolled along by the winds, hence its
name.
Cotton Vine: A plant, probably the same cynanolium of which the unripe
milky pod is eaten by the natives about Lake Torrens.
Polygonum cunninghami: A very wiry shrubby bush, which always indicates
that the ground where it grows is liable to be occasionally flooded. It
is the same as the one from the Murray and Darling.
Mulga Scrub (an Acacia): This is frequently mentioned by Stuart; its
botanical name is not known.
...
As it is desirable that all the routes from the Darling towards the
Barcoo River should be known the following letter from Mr. Neilson is
appended. The route he describes is almost on a direct line from Mount
Rankine to Carpentaria.
Kennedy's XIX Camp, River Warrego, May 22 1862.
Dear Sir,
Agreeably to your request I beg to furnish you with a few memoranda of a
journey made by Messrs. H. and F. Williams and myself from Mount Rankine
on the Darling towards Cooper's Creek. We left the Darling on the 22nd of
June 1861, and after crossing the Talywalka Creek at six miles camped on
Mulyoh Spring, course north-west by west distance twenty-five miles. Our
next day's journey was to Wentholey on the Paroo Creek upon the same
bearing and a distance of forty miles. We then followed the Paroo Creek
upward on a general course of north by east half east to the 29th
parallel, when we struck out to the north-west, and on rising the range
saw a large sheet of water. Camped upon it. It proved to be a lake of
about twenty-five miles in circumference and very shallow. Our distance
travelled, twenty-three miles from the boundary. Next day followed the
same course and camped at thirty miles on a large clay-pan. Followed on
the next day, and at ten miles came on a Boree Creek with water. Followed
on bearing to the northward of north-west about half a point, and camped
on a lateral creek containing pools of water and polygonum flats, and on
examining the bed of the creek found some crayfish-eyes, and judged to be
in the vicinity of a large water. Distance travelled twenty-six miles.
Next day followed the creek on a north-north-west bearing, and at eleven
miles came to a large creek running rapid and having flooded flats
extending two miles from its bed, and bearing marks of very high floods.
We crossed the creek and extended our journey about fifteen miles to the
west; the country being cut up by creeks not then flooded but bearing
evidences of high floods. Our rations being short we turned back. From
this point I consider our position to be within about thirty-five miles
of Cooper's Creek. We followed the creek we left, running down for about
fifty miles on a south-west by south course. A larger volume of water
comes down this creek than what comes down the Warrego, and it contains
some fine reaches of water where the creeks meet and form one channel. I
believe it to be identical with the Nive of Mitchell, never traced out,
and in its position with the Paroo forms a line of communication
practicable in all seasons from Mount Rankine on the Darling to Cooper's
Creek, and by Cooper's Creek upwards to the Thomson, completes, with your
discoveries, a perfect and practicable line of communication to
Carpentaria.
I have doubt to venture an opinion that it is quite practicable to make a
cross-country track from this to the junction of the Thompson and Cooper
from the knowledge I have formed; but I think the requirements of the
case are better met by striking the Cooper where it takes the turn
westward (i.e.. where Sturt followed it to the east) that point being
more adapted to the wants of the more southern settlers.
I have forwarded a tracing of my route to Mr. Gregory by my letter of
February 26th last, and just give you the foregoing crude data to go
upon, and of which you may make what use you think proper.