Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/47

 to be the case with Pandanus, exists only within the influence of the sea air."

This last remark of Mr. Allan Cunningham quite agrees with my own observations: the pine I have never seen growing any where, except in brushes bordering on the salt-water estuaries of rivers, or salt-water inlets near the coast; and the Australian Pandanus, which closely resembles the African Pandanus, (and which bears a large golden-coloured fruit, of the size of a pumpkin, and somewhat resembling a pine-apple in its external appearance,) grows only on the grassy headlands along the coast, and on the sandy hillocks which extend along the low beaches.

The next river, the native name of which is Bellengen, was first found in the year 1841, by a party of sawyers who went out on an expedition to discover new rivers to cut cedar at. On their return, they said, that after travelling four days from Kempsey, on the MacLeay, keeping as near the coast as they could, they came to a salt-water inlet, as large as the MacLeay river at its mouth. On questioning the Yarra-Bandini tribes of blacks, at the MacLeay river, I learnt from them, that, in their Corroberrees, or dances of ceremony, with some of the tribes from the Nambucca, they had heard that there was another river, always containing plenty of fresh water, farther on. Having been at that time constantly engaged, for nearly twelve months, in the survey of the MacLeay river, I