Various authors

“ The land I next passed through, was much encumbered with trees, principally mahogany and the oak; rock was abundant; and in what few plains I encountered, a white clay, mixed with some little sand; streams of clear good water were plentiful; nine, this day, we passed, one of which was very considerable; we crossed it at the rapids, after walking by its side about a mile north; most of the others were large enough to lead to the opinion of their not being mere torrents; we were generally more fortunate in finding fallen trees to assist us in crossing. ”

“ Wild celery grew very abundant on the side of the estuary. The natives make, however, a great point of our not eating it; signifying it would affect us with vomiting; some of these people had once before done the same thing, on my affecting to taste the nuts of the palm tree, which I knew to be emetic; as they, therefore, seemed to view unconcerned our dish of rock spinach, I was inclined to pay some regard to their exhortation.
Here, too, I recognised another plant which is found also growing on the rich stiff flats on the banks of the Blackwood ”

“ Edwards was much tired at 12 o'clock, and on that account we halted for about an hour, though we were only waiting the presence of water to commence our dinner; half a mile beyond this we came to a stream, on the banks of which we dined; four miles more ended our day's march, and a comfortable bivouac we had, free from wind and rain. The land we had now passed was nearly all heavily timbered; a whitish soil was common. We procured no game, though there was plenty of Kangaroo; our dogs wanted scent and swiftness. ”

“ I enter thus into these particulars, because I infer that a judicious treatment of the natives at Augusta has procured in them, towards the settler, a peaceful disposition. It will be satisfactory to learn, that the population about to flow towards the Vasse has grounds for expecting that friendy reception which a previous knowledge of the habits of Europeans, or a favourable report circulated amongst the tribes, and a consequent predisposition to amity, may seem to promise. ”

“ At about a mile from this bivouac we came the next day upon a small stream flowing N. by E.; this I followed about half a mile, in order to avoid a swamp that seemed to extend some distance on the opposite side; the trees here were distant from each other and large. A white cockatoo, the first I had seen this year, attracted the attention of one of our party, but no success attended his efforts.
The country, as we advanced on the other side of the rivulet, improved rapidly; the ground on which we trod was a vivid green, unsullied with burnt sticks or blackened grass trees ”

“ Red gum, as far I can learn, is the tougnest and hardest of the whole race of eycalipti, resisting the wedge, and of little use to the joiner, from its abounding in veins of gum, which, like that of the mahogany, is red ”

“ Since, according to my reckoning, I was now nearly as far north as the Vasse itself—and as I had seen that the country for some distance before us was very hilly, whereas in the vicinity of the point I was making very large plains—since too I had all along kept to the eastward more than I thought was right, wishing to cross over the same tracts that the last travellers had crossed; and because of the westerly direction of the water courses I determined to make a little westing, and with that intention, I began my march the next morning, N. by W. at first ”

“ MR. BUSSELL'S JOURNAL of an Expedition to the River Vasse, from the Blackwood.
We left the Blackwood at the rapids, and for some time traversed a country alternately rocky and sandy, with occasional patches of good soil, always however thickly wooded with mahogany. The first change that presented itself was a thicket of young trees of the eycaliptus kind; what these species might be, I could not tell, though I should conclude, the same as constitutes the timber of the neighbouring forests; they grew about four feet high, and had the appearance of a nursery; the soil was a white earth. ”

“ The grass tree is not uncommon, but of a different species from either the many-crested, or hastile; its trunk does not appear above ground, but the stalk that bears the flower and seed is much slenderer than ordinary ”

“ I observed that the vegetative principle in the roots of large trees, seems, by a gradual but resistless process, to have had the power of thrusting or wedging up large masses, the fissures of which were suficiently capacious for their first exigencies, and early growth ”

“ I should, in fact, have taken it for one of the trefoil tribe, had I not afterwards, at the Vasse, seen the flower which is papilionaceous; the pod contains about five seeds. each ocnipyipg a separate cell formed by partitions of a spongy substance; in taste the leaf resembles grass, though it is rather more glutinous. Thus much notice (undue perhaps) I took of this small herb, from its resemblance to clover, and an idea inspired by that resemblance that it might afford good pasturage. The native we had just left, recognised none of the words we had acquired from the natives of Augusta ”

“ I accordingly walked about a mile farther, and finally bivouaoed on another streamlet, flowing the same way; here we put up two large kangaroos; the land, for tht last few miles, had been less hilly and rocky; we all suffered much from cold this night. The next morning, after a walk of three quarters of an hour, I came on the seaward branch of the Blackwood, about 200 yards from the point of its junction with the main stream ”

“ In high tides, this lake, as we advanced, became brackish; seems to cover a large surface, which was then exposed, and exhibited a continuous flat of limestone, having its interstices filled with a coarse reddish sand ”

“ This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days) , and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in Australia on the URAA date (January 1, 1996) . This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996. ”