Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 1.djvu/86

 32 SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL !ss. imprudently' bathed, which occasioned, to some of Veb. m. them, two or three days' indisposition, and it was fortunate that they did' not.suffer. from a-coup d so/d/. This indiscretion was, however, never aterwards permitted. During the absence of the boat, Mr. Bedwell landed abreast the anchorage, and walked a mile inland to one of the salt marshes. On his way, he passed several am-hills ot the same descrip- tion as those seen by us at the Bay of Rest. The coast. is here .protected from inroads of the sea by a barrier of sand "dunes," from ten to twenty feet high, on which were growing a variety of plants, particularly a species of convolvolus, which, 'from the great size and length of its stem, being an inch in diameter and extending along the beach for more than thirty yards, is very conspicuous. �Behind these "duns" the chuntry is fiat, 'and in most parts below the level of the �sea; so that when the tides rise high enough to pass over the breaks in the "dunes," the country is inundated, when, by the intense heat of the sun, the water is very speedily evaporated, and a salt incrustation,, to a great extent,' is formed upon the plains.. At the distance of four or five miles from the beach, a small range of rocky. hills, apparently destitute of vegetation, formed a boundary to-the view. The shore is

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