The soil was loose and yielding, and
of a very poor quality. Although this plain was covered with
vegetation, there was no grass whatever upon it; but a growth of a
kind of broom, two to three feet high, waving in the heated breezes as
far as the eye could reach, which gave it a billowy and extraordinary
appearance. The botanical name of this plant is Eremophila scoparia.
At fifty miles from Colona and eighty-five from the bay, we reached a
salt lagoon, which, though several miles long, and perhaps a mile
wide, Mr. Murray's black boy informed us was the footmark or track of
a monstrous animal or snake, that used to haunt the neighbourhood of
this big plain, and that it had been driven by the Cockata blacks out
of the mountains to the north, the Musgrave Ranges of my last
expedition, and which are over 400 miles from the bay. He added that
the creature had crawled down to the coast, and now lived in the sea.
So here was reliable authority for the existence of a sea serpent. We
had often heard tales from the blacks, when sitting round our camp
fires at night, about this wonderful animal, and whenever any native
spoke about it, it was always in a mysterious undertone. What the name
of this monster was, I cannot now remember; but there were syllables
enough in it to make a word as long as the lagoon itself.
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