Discoveries in Australia Volume II Part 8

November 13.

The day was devoted to fixing the position of several of the surrounding hills; and in the afternoon we obtained observations for rating the chronometers: I found that one by French, which I had worn in my pocket, had gone most admirably. Captain Wickham joined us in the gig after dark.

The evening was cloudy, and we had a sharp squall at midnight from south-east.

November 14.

Both boats were moved off down the river at daylight, and ere it had pa.s.sed away, the ford above Steep Head was left behind. We found that the watering boats had not got over the shallow below, so that we spent the night together; and a merry party we made. We talked over all we had seen, and the hills that rose around echoed back for the first time the laugh and the song of civilized man, and our strange language was repeated as glibly by the rocks of Australia as if they were those of our own native land. So true is it that nature is ever ready to commune familiarly with us, whereas by our very brethren we are looked upon as enemies to shun, and are incapable of making ourselves understood by them.

A DESERTER.

When the morning of the 15th broke it was discovered that one of the men belonging to the watering party had deserted during the night. He had been guilty of this offence once before, in order to steal the spirits which had been buried for the use of my exploring party. What however could have induced him to take this step a second time--risking, without any apparent motive, the danger of being left on a strange, and almost uninhabited coast, it would be difficult even to suggest. Parties were immediately despatched in quest of him, and at length, after an arduous search, he was found behind a large sandstone rock on the side of a hill; having revisited the spot where the provisions had been concealed for the use of my party, in the hope of obtaining possession of his G.o.d the rum-keg. He had evidently prepared for desertion: clothing, biscuit, and fishing-tackle being among the stores with which he had made off. This despicable wretch--for such must everyone consider the man who would steal his shipmates' provisions, when each had only his bare allowance--had nothing to say, either in extenuation or explanation of his conduct. Most fortunate for him was it that our humane exertions to discover his retreat were successful; he could not long have subsisted by himself, and even had he been so happy as to fall in with, and receive hospitable welcome from the natives, he must of necessity have lingered out a life of toilsome, cheerless hardship while a companion of their wanderings, and when unfitted for this by old age, he would, according to the custom of the country, have been left to die, unfriended and alone, upon the spot where his last weary efforts failed. The delay occasioned by this extraordinary and unlooked-for event, made it late by the time all the boats were fairly on their way down the river. The wind was light from the north-east, and the temperature about 90 degrees, at 9 o'clock.

NEW KANGAROO.

I pushed on to gain a station at the commencement of the hills on the eastern side of Whirlwind Plains, and also, if possible, to shoot a kangaroo to send to the ship:* I was so fortunate as to secure two; one of a new species, very small, and of a dark brown colour, with coa.r.s.e hair, I found in rocky land, which it appears solely to inhabit, as it was also found near the ship. As, however, like the generality of kangaroos, this species only move of their own accord in the night time, they are rarely seen, and but one good specimen was obtained by Lieutenant Emery, who brought it to England, and submitted it to Mr.

Gould, who has described it as Petrogale concinna. It is now in the British Museum.

(*Footnote. I had now become quite an adept in this kind of sport. My plan was to direct a man to walk along near the river, where they are generally found, whilst I kept considerably above him and a little in advance, so that all those that were started running up from the bank in the curved direction, habitual with all kangaroos, pa.s.sed within shot.)

The height we visited was of coa.r.s.e sandstone formation, and attained an elevation of 150 feet. As I was left to examine some parts of the river which had been pa.s.sed in the night, I had a further opportunity of determining the value, and estimating the fertility of Whirlwind Plains.

My examination only confirmed my previous conjectures in favour of the capabilities of the soil. From what I had seen at Port Essington, as ground considered favourable for the growth of cotton, there can be no doubt that on these plains it would thrive much better; but the soil on the Victoria is of too fertile a character to bear any comparison with that of Cobourg Peninsula.

SILK COTTON-TREE.

At Reach Hopeless, and at other points of the important stream I am describing we observed numerous specimens of a kind of silk cotton-tree (Bombax): the diameter was sometimes as great as twenty inches; and it not unfrequently rose to the height of twenty or thirty feet, though generally shorter. The pods were of an oval shape, and about two inches and a half in length; each pod was in three divisions and full of a silky cotton, with the seeds not imbedded but held at the extremity of the fibres. I brought home a specimen and presented it to Sir William Hooker, of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, with whom I have since had some correspondence on the subject. He informs me that the plant is one hitherto undescribed; but that Sir Joseph Banks met with it in Captain Cook's voyage.

November 17.

We continued our descent of the river: stopping from time to time to complete the survey. In the end of Long Reach we noticed that the stream ran up two hours after high-water. After securing some observations for lat.i.tude under Station Peak in the early part of the night, we proceeded further down the river, delighted to escape from that mosquito-haunted neighbourhood.

EFFECTS OF DRINKING SALT-WATER.

November 18.

At day-break I was very much distressed and astonished to see one of the men on a sudden start up under the influence of delirium, and attempt to throw himself into the water, from which the combined strength of three or four of the crew with difficulty restrained him. He was one of the best men I had with me; his sudden and serious illness had doubtless been produced by the draughts of salt.w.a.ter which he had swallowed during the night. He had been accustomed to indulge in very liberal potations while we were up the river, and now, when from necessity the allowance was restricted to a gallon per day, he had most foolishly attempted in the dark to quench his thirst with the salt waters of the advancing tide. In the afternoon we rejoined the ship, and he was placed under the care of Mr. Bynoe; but it was some time before he fully recovered from the effects of his rash experiment. The day was very oppressive, the thermometer being 105 degrees in the shade, and there was no wind. We were cordially greeted by our shipmates upon our return, and both Mr.

Forsyth and myself enjoyed the luxury of a night's rest in our hammocks; a most agreeable change after the hot stones upon which we had generally been compelled to court repose during our exploration. We had both suffered much inconvenience from the attacks of flies upon our visual organs, necessarily exposed and undefended as they had been when we were occupied during the observations and in viewing the strange scenes of the last eighteen days. The irritation upon the lids produced a copious discharge, which fairly sealed them up at night; so that, at last, in order to have them ready for immediate use, I found it requisite to sleep with a wet linen cloth covering each eye.

We heard with great satisfaction that Lieutenant Emery's search for water had been completely successful, and that two large wells had been dug in the valley, abreast of which the ship was anch.o.r.ed. During our absence the barometer had ranged between 30.08 and 29.97; the minimum height being always at noon. There had been several sharp squalls from the eastward, beginning at south-east and ending at north-east, with a few showers of rain. North-west, or seabreezes, were regular near the changes of the moon, and of greater duration. No meteors were observed since the 16th, but between the 7th and 11th they were very numerous.

GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS.

November 20.

I went ash.o.r.e to collect a few geological specimens: the sandstone which prevailed everywhere was in a decomposed state, but there was a very decided dip in the strata to the south-east, of about 30 degrees. On the east side of Water Valley, I found the same kind of slate, noticed before at Curiosity Peak: but what most interested me was a bituminous substance found near the bottom of the wells recently dug, and 23 feet from the surface of the ground. It was apparently of a clayey nature when first brought up, but became hard and dark upon exposure to the air, and ignited quickly when put into the flame of a candle. The sides of Water Valley were very precipitous, and nearly 300 feet high: a growth of palms marked the spot, and served to indicate our wells. We here saw also the same fruit I had noticed on Curiosity Peak.

BIRD'S PLAYHOUSE.

I found matter for conjecture in noticing a number of twigs with their ends stuck into the ground, which was strewed over with sh.e.l.ls, and their tops brought together so as to form a small bower; this was 2 1/2 feet long, 1 1/2 foot wide at either end. It was not until my next visit to Port Essington that I thought this anything but some Australian mother's toy to amuse her child: there I was asked, one day, to go and see the bird's playhouse, when I immediately recognised the same kind of construction I had seen at the Victoria River: the bird* was amusing itself by flying backwards and forwards, taking a sh.e.l.l alternately from each side, and carrying it through the archway in its mouth.

(*Footnote. Figured in Mr. Gould's work as Chlamydera nuchalis.)

November 22.

The moon being full to-day we noticed that the tides were very strong: particularly the flood-stream, which came in bores, and sometimes swept by the ship at the rate of 6 1/2 knots, while the ebb did not exceed 4 1/2: the greatest rise also to-day was 24 feet.

SINGULAR CHANGE OF WINDS.

November 25.

My journal of this day begins with remarking a very extraordinary change that took place in the winds. Instead of the usual fresh North-West breeze after ten A.M., there was a moderate one from East-South-East.

This drew round gradually by east to north. At sunset the weather was very gloomy; but the barometer indicated nothing, ranging as usual. In the early part of the night the wind was light from North-North-West, changing suddenly at midnight to a fresh breeze from South-East with rain. When the morning broke, it had veered to East-South-East with squalls from East-North-East and heavy rain. Dense ma.s.ses of clouds covered the sky, enveloping everything in gloom; which, though so far agreeable as to reduce the temperature to 75 degrees, had a most singular effect after the constant bright sunny days we had experienced. There was still no unusual change in the barometer, the maximum being 30.06, and the minimum 29.98 at two P.M. The night was squally without rain.

HURRICANE AT PORT ESSINGTON.

November 27.

The day broke with an appearance of fine weather; patches of blue sky peeped between the heavy ma.s.ses of clouds, and expanding as the day advanced, left us at sunset with a cloudless vault of blue overhead. The barometer was lower throughout the whole of this day than it had been at all, being at two P.M. 29.91. When this strange weather first began I was disposed to consider it to be of the same character as that which I had before observed to occur within a few days of the change of the moon. But its duration and occasional violence led me to think otherwise, and I afterwards found my conclusions to be correct; as at this very time a hurricane visited Port Essington, distant 270 miles, in a North 30 degrees East direction.*

(*Footnote. The following account of the effects of this hurricane at Port Essington is from the pen of Captain Stanley, and has been published in the Nautical Magazine for September 1841.

Monday 25th.

A strong breeze set in from the south-east with drizzling rain, but as the barometer remained at 29.90, its usual point, and similar weather had been experienced at the change of the monsoon in 1838, nothing was apprehended, more particularly as the wind moderated (as had been expected) at sunset. Between seven and eight o'clock the wind drew round to the southward, and the barometer began to fall rapidly: at ten it blew furiously from the same quarter, and the barometer was as low as 29.10; many of the trees were blown down at this time. At midnight the wind drew round to the eastward, and blew a perfect hurricane, before which nearly everything gave way; the trees came down in every part of the settlement; the marines' houses were all blown down; the church, only finished a week, shared the same fate: the barometer fell to 28.52.

About two A.M. the wind shifted suddenly to the northward, from which point for about half-an-hour, its fury was tremendous; the government-house, built on stone piers, was blown away from them to a distance of nine feet; the sea rose ten feet and a half, by measurement afterwards, above the usual high-water mark. H.M.S. Pelorus, having parted her cables, was driven on sh.o.r.e, and thrown over on her beam ends, on the north-east point of the settlement, where heeling over 82 degrees, her starboard side was buried nine feet in the mud, leaving the keel three feet clear of the ground.**

At daylight the barometer rose slowly to 29.90, the gale moderated, and the sea went down so fast, that between seven and eight we were able to send a boat to the a.s.sistance of the Pelorus: after eight the breeze continued to blow strong from the northward for two days, with heavy rain.

The occurrence of such a hurricane must be very rare, as the natives were as much astonished as ourselves, and came to beg for shelter: they have no name for it, and no tradition of anything of the sort having happened before: the state in which the very extensive fences at Raffles Bay were in shortly before, must prove that the trees had never been blown down in the way they were on the 25th of November, since that settlement was abandoned in 1829.

The extent of the hurricane must have been very limited: at Coepang a strong gale from the south-west was experienced, and also between Java and Timor on the 26th, but the wind did not change. Even 18 miles north, at Vashon Head, the change of wind must have been greater though equal in force. There the first trees fell with the wind from West-South-West; a few fell when the wind was east, and most when the wind was north-west.

The Malays have an idea that every fifth year the monsoon is stronger than usual, but can give no reason for thinking so. According to them this monsoon ought to have been a strong one.

(**Footnote. The Pelorus was dug out of the mud, and once more got afloat towards the middle of February following. This immense undertaking was accomplished by the indefatigable exertion and mechanical skill of her commander, Captain Kuper, C.B., a.s.sisted by Captain Stanley. J.L.S.))

COURSE OF THE STORM.

The bad weather in the Victoria then would appear to have been caused by the proximity of the southern edge of this storm as it pa.s.sed to the westward. The fact of the time when the weather was the worst, having been the same at Port Essington, and in the Victoria; and of the French discovery ships meeting it in Torres Strait first, shows the westerly course of the storm. Its northern edge did not reach Coepang, but a strong gale from the south-west on the 26th showed that it was pa.s.sing.

Most probably it took a more southerly course before reaching Timor.*

(*Footnote. We were informed at Timor that hurricanes were never felt there, but occur once in four or five years to the southward of it. It may be added that a vessel lost her top-masts in the Port Essington hurricane, near Sandalwood Island, and that to the southward of Java hurricanes occur frequently.)

I pa.s.sed the night on sh.o.r.e, making observations for lat.i.tude, and in the hope also of being able to obtain another specimen of the new small kangaroo, that being the time when it is generally to be found on the move. But I did not succeed in this object; and failed also in my expectation of knocking over one of a large kind seen in the interior. I left the observation spot for this purpose with the first grey of the morn, taking an East-North-East direction for about four miles.

DREARY COUNTRY.

The country was most dreary; vast ranges strewn over with huge blocks of sandstone, rose in desolate grandeur around; chasms, ravines, and thirsty stony valleys yawned on every side; all was broken, rugged, and arid, as if the curse of sterility had fallen on the land; in short, the contrast was complete between this desert place and the country we had so lately traversed up the river. I was able, accordingly, to procure nothing in the shape of a fresh meal, save a few black c.o.c.katoos and some of the pigeons of a dark brown colour, with a white patch on the extremity of the wing, which I have alluded to in the earlier part of the work relating to King's Sound, as always inhabiting rocky districts and making a whirring sound, like a partridge, on the wing.

LOSE TWO ANCHORS.