Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/113

 one of the Brothers, over a grassy flat, timbered by tea-trees, and swamp oak. A little farther on I met a number of the women belonging to the tribe just mentioned, and soon after I encountered a party of the blacks themselves. They were very solicitous about the Port Macquarie "blackfellows," and made many inquiries as to what they were doing and where they were encamped, on which subjects I could give them no information. They were more importunate and greedy than the less civilized blacks beyond the MacLeay, who had not had so much intercourse with the whites, teasing me for tobacco, and asking for my handkerchief; so I soon rode away from them. The country now became less thickly wooded, and a few miles farther, on crossing a range crowned by a mass of naked pudding-stone rock, I saw, to the left, the extensive swamps to the north of the Manning called Jamaica plains, the intense verdure of which, formed a pleasing contrast to the more yellow-tinted green of the grassy forest hills. I now entered some extensive flats, covered with high grass, and timbered by large blue gum-trees and tea-trees, standing widely apart from each other. There were a great many creeks, and chains of deep water-holes here, which meandered among these flats without being enveloped in brush. The soil was very rich. This level tract extended to Major Innes' cattle station at Brinben, where I arrived at nightfall, being guided thither by the barking of the dogs, as I had ridden for some distance, to the left of the usual track to that station.