Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia | Page 6

clung to a worthless property, even at the risk of their lives, is almost incredible, and it is to be borne in mind that this property was not their own, but what they had taken from the wreck of the boats. Did I even induce one to throw anything away another avaricious fellow would pick it up; and their thoughts and conversation, instead of running upon making the best of their way home and saying their lives, consisted in conjectures as to what they would realize from their ill-gotten and embarrassing booty.
SUPERIOR NATIVE PATH AND WELLS.
The course I pursued was one of 180 degrees and we soon fell in with the native path which we had quitted yesterday; but it now became wide, well beaten, and differing altogether by its permanent character from any I had seen in the southern portion of this continent. For the first five miles we traversed scrubby stony hills, thickly wooded with banksia trees; but the limestone here again cropped out and we entered a very fertile valley, running north and south and terminating in a larger one which drained the country from east to west. This valley is remarkable as containing one Xanthorrhoea (grass-tree) being the farthest point to the north at which I have found this tree. In it also was a gigantic ant's nest, being the most southerly one I had yet seen. All these circumstances convinced me that we were about to enter a very interesting region. And as we wound along the native path my wonder augmented; the path increased in breadth and in its beaten appearance, whilst along the side of it we found frequent wells, some of which were ten and twelve feet deep and were altogether executed in a superior manner.
NATIVE WARRAN GROUND. PLAINS ABOUNDING IN THE WARRAN PLANT.
We now crossed the dry bed of a stream and from that emerged upon a tract of light fertile soil, quite overrun with warran plants,* the root of which is a favourite article of food with the natives. This was the first time we had yet seen this plant on our journey, and now for three and a half consecutive miles we traversed a fertile piece of land literally perforated with the holes the natives had made to dig this root; indeed we could with difficulty walk across it on that account, whilst this tract extended east and west as far as we could see.
(*Footnote. The Warran in a species of Dioscorea, a sort of yam like the sweet potato. It is known by the same name both on the east and west side of the continent.)
It was now evident that we had entered the most thickly-populated district of Australia that I had yet observed, and moreover one which must have been inhabited for a long series of years, for more had here been done to secure a provision from the ground by hard manual labour than I could have believed it in the power of uncivilised man to accomplish. After crossing a low limestone range we came down upon another equally fertile warran ground, bounded eastward by a high range of rocky limestone hills, luxuriantly grassed, and westward by a low range of similar formation. The native path about two miles further on crossed this latter range, and we found ourselves in a grassy valley, about four miles wide, bounded seawards by sandy downs. Along its centre lay a chain of reedy freshwater swamps, and native paths ran in from all quarters to one main line of communication leading to the southward.
DANGERS OF DELAY.
In these swamps we first found the yunjid, or flag (a species of typha) and the sow-thistle of the southern districts; one we came to was a thick tea-tree swamp, extremely picturesque, and producing abundance of these plants, some of which were collected by the men to eat in the evening. To my surprise Mr. Walker here came up to me and asked if I did not think it would be better to halt for a day or two at places of this kind to allow the men to refresh themselves. The idea of men halting and wasting their strength and energies in searching for native food whilst they had so fearful a journey before them, and no supplies, appeared to me to be preposterous in the extreme: to obtain a sufficiency of food, even for a native, requires in Australia a great degree of skill and knowledge of the productions of the country; but for a European, utterly unaccustomed to this species of labour and totally unacquainted with the productions of the land, to obtain enough to support life for any period, whilst at the same time he has to search for water, is quite impossible. Even Kaiber, from his ignorance of the roots,