suarinae and eucalypti are
occasionally seen in the scrubs which grow on the red sand, and an acacia
with a white stem and spotted bark there grows to a considerable size,
and produces much gum. Indeed gum acacia abounds in these scrubs, and
when the country is more accessible may become an article of commerce.

GRASSES.

The plants were in general different from those nearer the colony, and
though they were few in number, yet they were curious. Of grasses I
gathered seeds of twenty-five different kinds, six of which grew only on
the alluvial bank of the Darling. Among them were a poa, and the Chloris
truncata, and Stipa setacea of Mr. Brown. The country was nevertheless
almost bare, and the roots, stems, and seeds, the products of a former
season, were blown about on the soft face of the parched and naked earth
where the last spring seemed indeed to have produced no vegetation
excepting a thin crop of an umbelliferous weed.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES.

The character and disposition of the natives may be gathered from the
foregoing journal of our progress along the river. It seldom happened
that I was particularly engaged with a map, a drawing, or a calculation,
but I was interrupted by them, or respecting them. It was evident that
our presents had the worst effect, for although they were given with
every demonstration of goodwill on our part, the gifts seemed only to
awaken on theirs a desire to destroy us, and to take all we had. While
sitting in the dust with them, conformably to their custom, often have
they examined my cap, evidently with no other view than to ascertain if
it would resist the blow of a waddy. Then they would feel the thickness
of my dress and whisper together, their eyes occasionally glancing at
their spears and clubs. The expression of their countenances was
sometimes so hideous that after such interviews I have found comfort in
contemplating the honest faces of the horses and sheep; and even in the
scowl of the patient ox I have imagined an expression of dignity when he
may have pricked up his ears, and turned his horns towards these wild
specimens of the lords of creation. Travellers in Australian deserts will
find that such savages cannot remain at rest when near, but are ever
ready and anxious to strip them by all means in their power of
everything, however useless to the natives. It was not until we proceeded
en vainqueur that we knew anything like tranquillity on the Darling; and