CHAPTER V.
DIFFERENCE OF SOIL AS TO MOISTURE--PHILLIPS'S MOUNTAIN--ALLOWANCE OF FLOUR REDUCED AGAIN--HUGHS'S CREEK--TOMBSTONE CREEK--CHARLEY AND BROWN BECOME UNRULY--THE ISAACS--NATIVE WOMEN--COXEN'S PEAK AND RANGE-- GEOLOGICAL CHARACTER--CHARLEY REBELS AGAIN AND LEAVES--BROWN FOLLOWS HIM--BOTH RETURN PENITENT--VARIATIONS OF THE WEATHER--SKULL OF NATIVE--FRIENDLY NATIVES VISIT THE CAMP.
Feb.

2 .-- Being much recovered, I took both Blackfellows with me, and again passed the defile east of Roper's and Scott's Peaks, and followed the watercourse rising from it to the northward.

About two or three miles lower down, we found water in deep rocky basins in the bed of the creek.
The rock was sandstone, fissured from south-west to north-east.
In passing the foot of the peaks, we found a species of Grewia (Dwarf Roorajong) covered with ripe fruit; the fruit is dry, but the stringy tissue which covers the seed, contains a slightly sweet and acidulous substance of a very agreeable taste.

The fig-tree with a rough leaf, had plenty of fruit, but not yet ripe.

Erythrina was both in blossom and in seed.
Sending Brown back to conduct our party to the water-holes we had found, and leaving the creek, which turned to the eastward, I continued my ride to the northward.