The food of the dugong consists chiefly of marine vegetables, which it finds at the bottom of inlets, in comparatively shallow water, where it is easily captured. Its flesh resembles good beef, and is much esteemed. The oil obtained from its fat is peculiarly clear and limpid, and is free from any disagreeable smell, such as most animal oils are accompanied with. It has not yet been produced in sufficient quantities to acquire a recognised market value.
The blacks devour the carcase roasted, after expressing the oil for sale to the colonists. A perfumer in Sydney tried to convert this oil into a new mixture for the hair: unfortunately, an experiment upon himself and his wife produced baldness instead of luxuriance, yet its appearance is as fine as sperm.
Behind Moreton Bay, on the other side the mountain range, forming a district of high tableland and cool temperature, are the Darling Downs, a magnificent sheep country, which is also accessible from the Clarence River.
The climate of the Moreton Bay district, like nearly all the district north of Port Macquarie, is too hot for wheat, which grows luxuriantly, but is subject to blight: for sheep and cattle there is no finer country, and maize and all semi-tropical productions grow in perfection. Grapes ripen, but are too subject to frosts to make good wine.
A very short distance from the town of Brisbane the clearings end and the forest commences; now green trees, then pine, then open plains, and well-watered valleys.
The rainy season of this intertropical region has been graphically described by Mr. Mossman:—"Masses of dense scud rise up from the Pacific Ocean towards the interior, until they are checked by the southerly wind blowing over the higher, colder New England country (on the other side of the mountain ranges), and packed into a uniform mass shrouding the heavens; a stifling sultriness succeeds, the lightning bursts forth from the lurid gloom, flash succeeds with fearful rapidity now forked from the zenith, anon like a chain around the verge of the horizon, while the crash of thunder resounds. The floodgates of the black canopy are opened the rain descends in torrents with a loud pattering soon the narrow tributaries of the river are swollen, some rising as much as fifty feet in twelve hours the surrounding plains are deluged. In the five months of rain the earth becomes saturated, the forests drip continually, while the nearly vertical sun creates a warm, humid, unhealthy atmosphere." Ophthalmia and general debility follow this kind of weather; but the author of the passage just quoted considers that if Indian bungalows were erected by the settlers, instead of naked
