Leaving
this hill and passing Poothraba, which is in sight of it, we continued
our nearly west course, and camped once more in the scrubs. The
country was very difficult for the loaded camels, it rose into such
high ridges or hills of sand that we could only traverse it at a
snail's pace. It was of course still covered with scrubs, which
consisted here, as all over this region, mostly of the Eucalyptus
dumosa, or mallee-trees, of a very stunted habit; occasionally some
patches of black oaks as we call them, properly casuarinas, with
clumps of mulga in the hollows, here and there a stunted cypress pine,
callitris, some prickly hakea bushes, and an occasional so called
native poplar, Codonocarpus cotinifolius, a brother or sister tree to
the poisonous Gyrostemon. The native poplar is a favourite and
harmless food for camels, and as it is of the same family as the
Gyrostemon, my friend Baron von Mueller argues that I must be mistaken
in the poison plant which affected the camels. He thinks it must be a
plant of the poisonous family of the Euphorbiaceae, and which
certainly grows in these regions, and which I have collected specimens
of, but I cannot detect it.
We were now nearly in the latitude of Youldeh, and had only to push
west to reach it; but the cow camel that Jimmy and Tommy rode, being
very near calving, had not travelled well for some days, and gave a
good deal of trouble to find her of a morning.
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