Discoveries in Australia Volume II Part 37

Leaving, we again spent several days under a close-reefed main-topsail and a reefed fore-sail; but at length reached an anchorage on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Flinders Island within the north-east side of a granitic lump called Babel Islet. The flood tide came from the north-east at this anchorage, which can only be used in easterly winds. There is a curious dome on the inner side of Babel, which is connected by a sandy spit with the large island. Within the eastern point of the latter are the remarkable pyramidal hills, called the Patriarchs, rising out of a scrubby plain, much cut up with lagoons, which forms the character of this side of Flinders. We were enabled to fix the eastern sh.o.r.e of the island, from Babel Islet and the outer Patriarch, whence the view was commanding. A range of bare-topped hills lies to the west, whilst to the south-west, through a ma.s.s of clouds, we occasionally caught glimpses of some high peaks, which I named after my friend Count Strzelecki. A heathy valley stretches across the island to the westward, through which I saw the sea on the opposite side; on the northern part the hills are more rounded and lower.

TO KENT GROUP.

From Babel Islet we proceeded towards Kent Group, pa.s.sing, in 11 or 12 fathoms, along the eastern sh.o.r.e of Flinders Island, where we discovered a dangerous sandy spit extending five miles off; from its extreme the eastern part of the outer Sister bore North 64 degrees West, six miles and a half. After rounding the latter the wind changed in a violent squall to the westward, and gave us a long beat of a day to reach Kent Group, during which we discovered a reef,* just awash at high-water, and bearing East 8 degrees South, five miles and a half from Wright's Rock.**

(*Footnote. Beagle's Reef.)

(**Footnote. A pyramidal lump, three hundred feet high, resembling a cutter under sail.)

This, Endeavour Reef, and a sunken rock, about a mile east of Craggy Island, const.i.tute the chief dangers between Kent Group and Flinders. The extremes are marked to the north and south by Wright's Rock and Craggy Island, between which ships should not pa.s.s, although there is a channel close to the south side of the former. It should also be particularly borne in mind that the tides, which here sometimes run two knots, set rather across the channel South-West by South and North-East by North.

The north-easterly stream beginning a quarter before noon at the full and change of the moon.

DANGEROUS SITUATION

The Beagle pa.s.sed half a mile from the north-west side of Wright's Rock, in 29 fathoms, in the evening; and having spent the night standing to-and-fro between it and Kent Group, in the morning was abreast of the opening between the islands called Murray Pa.s.s, when we steered towards it. The weather, for the season, was fine; and the sun, although weak, shone brightly from a clear wintry sky--it well-nigh happened for the last time--upon the poor old Beagle!

The sea, still vexed and chafing from the breeze of yesterday, rolled in with solemn grandeur on the storm-beaten sides of the islands; each heaving swell carrying the ship nearer towards the almost fatal opening.

Her motions, however, as if she was conscious of the fate that threatened her, were sluggish and slow, and she seemed unwillingly to obey the impulse of the light southerly breeze that aided her progress. Indeed there appeared to be an opposing tide until we drew in between the high rocky sides of the channel, when suddenly the ship was hurried onwards with such rapidity that to prevent our being swept past a cove on the right it was necessary to close with its outer point, towards which a merciless eddy flung the ship's head so rapidly, that before the thrown-aback sails checked her way, her jib-boom was almost over the rocks.* During the few awful moments that succeeded, a breathless silence prevailed; and naught was heard but the din of waters that foamed in fury around, as if impatient to engulf us in their giddy whirl. Still, it must be confessed, that our hearts sickened within at the thought that our little bark, after having braved so many storms, and done so much good service to the state, might be left to whiten a foreign sh.o.r.e with her timbers. Providence, however, decreed it should be otherwise; and the next moment the Beagle's head was slowly paying off from the sh.o.r.e. But her broadside becoming exposed to the swell, she was again driven in towards the point, and so close, that before the well-trimmed sails gave her way, as her stern went down with the swell, the a.s.surance that she must strike, pervaded every shuddering frame. To myself, the sensation was just as if my feet were under the keel; and I almost expected to feel the bones crushing. Still we clung to hope, which can find a place even in the narrowest interval of danger; and our eyes and hearts were lifted up in supplication to Him who had already so miraculously reprieved us.

Scarcely, however, had the prayer been formed and preferred, when the peril was past: in the course of an hour we were safely moored in East Cove, Kent Group.

(*Footnote. See the view annexed.)

LIGHTHOUSE HILL.

In this wild and confined anchorage we were detained by constant westerly gales for a fortnight, during the whole of which there was only one really clear day, when I got angles to all the distant points from a hill near the south-east extreme of the group, nine hundred and ten feet high and quite precipitous on its seaward face. We named it Lighthouse Hill, its admirably conspicuous situation suggesting the purpose to which it might be devoted; the materials for building, moreover, are all at hand.

DEAL ISLAND.

The princ.i.p.al islands of Kent Group have been named Deal and Erith; they occupy a square of four miles, and are separated by Murray Pa.s.s, a channel half a mile wide. Conical granitic hills, in some cases clothed to their very summits with an impervious scrub, are scattered over them.

On Deal, the eastern isle, there are charred stumps of a few large eucalypti: but otherwise the trees are small, the largest being a few casuarinas over the head of East Cove. The valleys on the north side are rich; and in one leading from Garden Cove we found a quant.i.ty of fine carrots, planted by some sealers; their seed had been carried by the wind until the whole valley was filled with them; fresh water also is abundant on that side of Deal Island; and as limestone crops out at the head of East Cove, a small party of convicts might be kept here and advantageously employed in erecting the lighthouse and cultivating the soil. By holding out to them a slight reward, many of the islands in Ba.s.s Strait might be brought under cultivation, and supply grain, potatoes, etc., for the consumption of the prisoners in Tasmania. This plan of dispersing the convicts would also be beneficial in producing a change for the better in themselves; for whilst together they are certainly more likely to brood mischief.

ERITH ISLAND.

Besides East Cove there are others on the north-east and south-east sides of Deal Island; whilst on Erith there is only one called West Cove, in the north part of Murray Pa.s.s; it is subject to violent gusts that do not reach East Cove.

The formation of this group is a little singular, the calcareous limestone on Deal occurring two hundred feet above the sea and between granite; whilst on Erith vesicular lava was found. These islands are connected with Flinders by a sand ridge, on which the depth is 28 and 30 fathoms; but the islets and rocks between would appear, from the evidence of upheaval we have just cited, to be elevated portions of a submerged piece of land about to disclose itself.*

(*Footnote. The observations on the tides at these islands make the time of high-water on the full and change of the moon a quarter past eleven, when it rises eight feet. The stream in Murray Pa.s.s, which runs from two to five knots, changes to the northward twenty minutes after high-water.)

In a valley behind East Cove there was a stream of water, which strange to say was quite salt and came from the middle of the island. In the same neighbourhood I turned loose about a dozen rabbits for the benefit of any unfortunate voyagers who might be thrown hungry ash.o.r.e in this locality.

During the few days that we were there they appeared to thrive very well, and I have no doubt that if not disturbed the island will soon be overrun with them, there being no wallabies to offer molestation.

HOGAN GROUP.

We were not sorry to find ourselves one fine morning turning our backs on the scene of one of the Beagle's many narrow escapes; so favourable did the weather continue, that, although in the first week in June, we were able to pa.s.s both the following nights at anchor in the middle of the strait;* on the first occasion between the Devil's Tower and Curtis's Island;** and on the second, five miles to the southward of Hogan Group.

(*Footnote. I gladly seized these opportunities of ascertaining exactly the set of the tides. At the first anchorage they ran East-North-East and South-East only from half to a quarter of a knot, the latter beginning half an hour before low-water at Kent Group; at the second the tide set North-East by East, one knot, and South-South-West a knot and a half; the southerly stream began one hour and a half after low-water at Kent Group: on both occasions there was a light westerly wind.

(**Footnote. The central position of this island renders it quite a finger-post for ships pa.s.sing through the Strait. It has at the south end a square summit 1060 feet high, in lat.i.tude 39 degrees 28 minutes 20 seconds South, and longitude 4 degrees 33 minutes 45 seconds West of Sydney; towards the north it slopes away something in the shape of a shoe, from which it is called by the sealers The Slipper. Two sugarloaf rocks, each 350 feet high, lie two miles and a half off its southern end.)

I landed on the largest island;* which I found to be a mile and a half in extent, inhabited by a number of dogs left by sealers, that had become quite wild; in a cave on the south-east point were some fur seals. Two small islets front a boat-cove on the north-east side, where there is fresh water; and outside these there is a rock just awash. The summit of the large island was a most important station; and with Lighthouse Hill at Kent Group, formed an astronomical base for the survey.

(*Footnote. The highest point I found to be in lat.i.tude 39 degrees 13 minutes 04 seconds South, and longitude 4 degrees 13 minutes 15 seconds west of Sydney; and 430 feet high.)

CORNER INLET.

From Hogan Group we stood to the northward, and were able to pa.s.s another night at anchor six miles from a low sandy sh.o.r.e, and fourteen to the eastward of Corner Inlet, which we found on examination had a bar extending off six miles from the entrance, on which at low tide there is water for vessels drawing sixteen and eighteen feet. A group of islets, named from their utility Direction Isles, lies in the fairway, a few miles outside the bar.

During the examination of this great useless sheet of water, the ship lay near a small islet close to the Promontory about seven miles from the entrance, which, from the abundance of rabbits, we called Rabbit Island;*

I have since learnt that these animals had multiplied from a single pair turned loose by a praiseworthy sealer six years before; and the sight of their number did not a little encourage me to expect a similar result from the gift I had bestowed on Kent Group.

(*Footnote. The outer extreme of this island, in one with Cape Wellington, forms a leading mark into Corner Inlet, but vessels should get them on within a mile of the island. These marks are of use until the eastern and highest of the Direction Isles opens out just clear of the others, when by keeping it in that position, or steering for the middle of the entrance, a ship may be taken safely in. The tide rises eight feet at springs, when the time of high-water is twenty minutes before noon.)

GIPPS' LAND.

From the highest hill on the south-eastern point I had obtained a most excellent view of Corner Inlet, which bore a great resemblance to a basin. I have before called it useless, from its being only navigable a mile or two within the entrance and that chiefly on the northern side, the rest being occupied by mud flats. It was a bitter cold day; but between the sleet squalls I was able to trace the coast westward as far as Cape Liptrap over the low neck connecting Wilson's Promontory with the main, and forming the south-western sh.o.r.e of Corner Basin; and eastward beyond Shallow Inlet,* where the Clonmel steamer was lost. About six miles to the north-east the masts of some vessels pointed out the approach to Alberton. The intervening s.p.a.ce was filled with islands and mud banks; which character the sh.o.r.e appeared to retain further eastward, being fronted by a margin of low sandy land, sometimes broken by the pressure of the sea from without or of the waters from within, when the streams that add to the fertility of Gipps' Land are swollen by the melting of the snows on the Australian Alps.

(*Footnote. Vessels bound to Alberton, the capital of Gipps' Land, generally pa.s.s through this inlet, but as the water is shallow, and breaks across the entrance, if there is any swell, it is more prudent to enter by Corner Inlet, and take the second opening on the right within the entrance.)

STRZELECKI.

To commemorate my friend Count Strzelecki's discovery of this important and valuable district, which he named in honour of His Excellency the Governor, I called the summit of a woody range 2110 feet high, over the north sh.o.r.e of Corner Inlet, Mount Fatigue.* The only vegetation this part of the promontory supports is a wiry gra.s.s, stunted gums and banksias in the valleys, and a few gra.s.s-trees near the crests of the hills which are generally bare ma.s.ses of granite. Behind a sandy beach on the east side beneath where I stood were sinuous lines of low sandhills, remarkable for their regularity, resembling the waves that rolled in on the sh.o.r.e.

(*Footnote. It was in the rear of this range that Count Strzelecki and his companions, on their way to Western Port, experienced the sufferings related in the Port Phillip Herald, June 1840, from which I extract the following: "The party was now in a most deplorable condition. Messrs.

MacArthur and Riley and their attendants had become so exhausted as to be unable to cope with the difficulties which beset their progress. The Count, being more inured to the fatigues and privations attendant upon a pedestrian journey through the wilds of our inhospitable interior, alone retained possession of his strength, and although burdened with a load of instruments and papers of forty-five pounds weight, continued to pioneer his exhausted companions day after day through an almost impervious tea-tree scrub, closely interwoven with climbing gra.s.ses, vines, willows, fern and reeds. Here the Count was to be seen breaking a pa.s.sage with his hands and knees through the centre of the scrub; there throwing himself at full length among the dense underwood, and thus opening by the weight of his body a pathway for his companions in distress. Thus the party inch by inch forced their way; the incessant rains preventing them from taking rest by night or day. Their provisions, during the last eighteen days of their journey, consisted of a very scanty supply of the flesh of the native bear or monkey, but for which, the only game the country afforded, the travellers must have perished from utter starvation...On the twenty-second day after they had abandoned their horses, the travellers came in sight of Western Port.")

SEALER'S COVE.

Water and fuel are abundant on the point abreast of Rabbit Island.

Southward from this projection a sandy beach extends five miles, with a rivulet at either end, and separated from a small deep bay* open to the east, by a remarkable bluff, the abrupt termination of a high-woody ridge. The trees on the south-west side were large and measured eight feet in diameter. In the humid shelter they afforded the tree and a variety of other kinds of fern were growing in great luxuriance, with a profusion of creepers matted together in a dense ma.s.s of rich foliage.

From thence southwards the sh.o.r.e is rocky and the water deep.

(*Footnote. This bay is evidently Sealer's Cove in the old charts; but this part of the Strait is so much in error that it is hardly possible to recognize any particular point.)

REFUGE COVE.

Refuge Cove, lying seven miles South 1/4 West from Rabbit Island, was our next anchorage. It was so named from its being the only place a vessel can find shelter in from the eastward on this side of the Promontory. Of this we ourselves felt the benefit; for although in the middle of June east winds prevailed the first few days we stayed there, with thick hazy weather, whilst at Rabbit Island we had constant westerly gales with a great deal of hail and sleet. This small cove, being only a cable wide at the entrance may be recognized by Kersop Peak, which rises over the south part, and from its lying between Cape Wellington and Horn Point,* and also from its being the first sandy beach that opens north of the former.

(*Footnote. This projection has two pointed hummocks on it resembling horns.)

Such of us as had been in Tierra del Fuego were particularly struck with the resemblance of the scenery in Refuge Cove; the smooth quiet sand beaches, and dense forests reaching the water's edge, the mist-capped hills, and the gusts that swept down the valleys and roared through the rigging, forcibly recalled to our recollection that region of storms.

We found a whaling establishment in the south-east corner,* and the houses for the boats and their crews formed quite a little village. The person in charge, with one or two others, remains during the summer.

These people had a novel safeguard against the attacks of the natives: a horrible looking figure, dressed so as to represent the evil spirit, of which the Australian aborigines are so much afraid, was placed in a conspicuous place; but whether it would have had the desired effect was not proved, as the natives had never been seen in those parts. There can, indeed, be little to tempt them to wander thither; for there are neither kangaroos nor wallabies, and but few birds. Among the most curious of those belonging to the land, is a kind of finch, with a black head, yellow beak, a dark brown back, and dirty white belly; across the wings and arching over the back, at the stump of the tail, was a stripe of white.

(*Footnote. Our observations made this spot in lat.i.tude 39 degrees 02 minutes 30 seconds South, and longitude 4 degrees 44 minutes 45 seconds West of Sydney. High-water on the full and change of the moon, takes place at 12 hours 5 minutes when the tide rises eight feet; a mile in the offing the northern and ebb stream, which runs from one to two knots, begins at 11 hours 40 minutes. Past the south end of the promontory the same stream sweeps round from the westward, sometimes at the rate of two knots and a half.)

WATERLOO BAY.