Transcription

                                                                       79

[indecipherable] whenever they got sight of a scrub or thicket and the whole line of loaden mules followed pushing carefully through this thickest underwood scrub the trotting and pushing upset their loads, they became
[ indecipherable] and we had a most difficult task for thousands of sandflies blackened our face
and hands and entered into nostrils eyes and ears or were engulphed as we respired: their bite is so sharp and their number was so great that we were almost mad with pain. No branch, no cloth could sweep them away as the brush past over the face and crushed the tormentors & [indecipherable] thier [their] place. We were compelled to make a fire in the bush simply to reload the mule and all the mules crowded immediately round it. - I hastened to water and came to the waterhole parallel to [indecipherable] which is separated from them only by a [league?] . My course was to the Northward until I went down to the River, NW or WNW: I  indecipherable]  say & came about 10 mules N by W. The River is running strong and looks very grand. We have made a great number of [indecipherable] round our camp to clear if from sandflies; our horses and mules are still [indecipherable] round them particularly round the kitchen fire which they seem always to prefer.
the 21st feb.  We were encamped on a hollow parallel to the [indecipherable]. We followed it down until it joined not the river, but a large creek
which came from the East and S East and drained probably the open undulating Whinstone country. this creek joined [indecipherable] at a little peak, on which I was with Brown on a former reconnoitring ride and under at the foot of which we found a solitary constant waterhole though the slopes were still soft in consequence of a late flood and though a small stream was still rippling along the deep bed, this ground we succeeded in finding a sound place and crossed it. I [indecipherable] to the River, and past a most intricate scrub with bottle tree and the cucumber fig {5 parectal placentes} the latter in full
 bearing and allmost [almost] ripe but inedible fruit. When I came to the River and kept along the [indecipherable] and had fine travelling our stage was about 12 miles N by East.

Current Status: 
Ready for review