Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia Volume I Part 30

In the outer pa.s.sage the sea is strewed with numerous reefs, many yet unknown,* which render the navigation at night extremely dangerous; and if, on approaching the part where it is intended to enter the reefs, the weather should be thick, and the sun too clouded at noon to procure an observation for the lat.i.tude, the navigator is placed in a very anxious and a very unenviable situation; for the currents are so strong that the position of the ship is by no means sufficiently known to risk running to leeward to make the reefs. The ensuing night must therefore in all probability be pa.s.sed in the greatest uncertainty and in the vicinity of extensive coral reefs.

(*Footnote. When this sheet was in the press an account was published in one of the daily newspapers (Morning Herald 3rd of March 1825) recording the discovery of some low coral islands and reefs by the ship Avon, September 18, 1823, in lat.i.tude 19 degrees 40 minutes South, longitude 158 degrees 6 minutes East.)

CHAPTER 10.

Cross the Gulf of Carpentaria, and anchor at Goulburn's South Island.

Affair with the natives.

Resume the survey of the coast at Ca.s.sini Island.

Survey of Montagu Sound, York Sound, and Prince Frederic's Harbour.

Hunter's and Roe's Rivers, Port Nelson, Coronation Islands.

Transactions at Careening Bay.

Repair the cutter's bottom.

General geognostical and botanical observations.

Natives' huts.

Brunswick Bay.

Prince Regent's River.

Leave the coast in a leaky state.

Tryal Rocks, Cloates Island.

Pa.s.s round the west and south coasts.

Ba.s.s Strait.

Escape from shipwreck.

Botany Bay.

Arrival at Port Jackson.

1820. August 17.

We did not leave our anchorage off b.o.o.by Island until the next morning, in order that we might obtain sights for the watches, and have the advantage of daylight for pa.s.sing over the position a.s.signed to a shoal, said to have been seen by the ship Aurora. After weighing we steered West-South-West for sixty miles without seeing any signs of it; and on this course our soundings very gradually increased to thirty fathoms.

August 18 to 19.

On our pa.s.sage across the Gulf of Carpentaria we had very fine weather but the horizon was enveloped in haze. The South-East monsoon was steady but very light; and the wind during the day veered occasionally to North-East, which might here be called a sea-breeze.

August 19.

On the 19th we pa.s.sed Cape Wessel. Hence we steered for Goulburn Islands.

August 21.

And on the afternoon of the 21st anch.o.r.ed in South West Bay, off the watering-place, which was running very slowly; a hole was dug to receive the drainings.

August 22.

And the next morning we commenced operations, but, from the small supply of water, our progress was very slow.

The natives had not made their appearance, but knowing whom we had to deal with, every precaution was taken to prevent surprise: an armed party was stationed to protect the remainder of our people who were cutting down the trees which grew immediately over the watering-place on the brink of the cliff; and the officers and men were severally cautioned against straying away from the sh.o.r.e party without taking the precaution of carrying arms.

Mr. Hunter and Mr. Cunningham ranged about the island near our wooding party; the former gentleman shot for us several birds, among which was a white c.o.c.katoo that differed from the species that is common at Port Jackson in being smaller and having a very small white crest or top-knot without any yellow feathers in it: its mandibles and feet were white but the feathers on the under part of the wings had the usual yellow tinge.

Mr. Cunningham was successfully employed in adding to his collections, but the dry season was so far advanced and the country so parched up that everything bespoke the last season as having been unusually dry.

August 23.

On the following day, when our people resumed their occupation, they were again cautioned not to trust to the apparent absence of the natives. In the afternoon Mr. Roe walked along the beach with his gun in quest of birds: on his way he met Mr. Hunter returning from a walk in which he had encountered no recent signs of the Indians. This information emboldened Mr. Roe to wander farther than was prudent, and in the mean time Mr.

Hunter returned to our party in order to go on board; he had however scarcely reached our station when the report of a musket and Mr. Roe's distant shouting were heard. The people immediately seized their arms and hastened to his relief and by this prompt conduct probably saved his life.

It appeared that, after parting from Mr. Hunter, he left the beach and pursued his walk among the trees; he had not proceeded more than fifty yards when he fired at a bird: he was cautious enough to reload before he moved from the spot in search of his game, but this was scarcely done before a boomerang* whizzed past his head, and struck a tree close by with great force. Upon looking round towards the verge of the cliff, which was about twenty yards off, he saw several natives; who upon finding they were discovered set up a loud and savage yell, and threw another boomerang and several spears at him, all of which providentially missed. Emboldened by their numbers and by his apparent defenceless situation, they were following up the attack by a nearer approach, when he fired amongst them, and for a moment stopped their advance. Mr. Roe's next care was to reload, but to his extreme mortification and dismay he found his cartouch box had turned round in the belt and every cartridge had dropped out: being thus deprived of his ammunition, and having no other resource left but to make his escape, he turned round and ran towards the beach; at the same time shouting loudly to apprize our people of his danger. He was now pursued by three of the natives, whilst the rest ran along the cliff to cut off his retreat.

(*Footnote. See Note above.)

On his reaching the edge of the water, he found the sand so soft that at every step his feet sunk three or four inches, which so distressed him and impeded his progress that he must soon have fallen overpowered with fatigue had not the sudden appearance of our people, at the same time that it inspired him with fresh hopes of escape, arrested the progress of the natives, who, after throwing two or three spears without effect, stopped and gave him time to join our party, quite spent with the extraordinary effort he had made to save his life.

Whilst this event occurred I was employed on board in constructing my rough chart, but upon Mr. Roe's being seen from the deck in the act of running along the beach pursued by the Indians, I hastened on sh.o.r.e, determined if possible to punish them for such unprovoked hostility. Upon landing, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Roe, and one of the men joined me in pursuit of the natives; but from our comparatively slow movements and our ignorance of the country, we returned after an hour without having seen any signs of them; in the evening before our people left off work we made another circuitous walk, but with the same bad success. The natives had taken the alarm and nothing more was seen of them during the remainder of our stay, excepting the smokes of their fires which appeared over the trees at the back of the island.

Previous to this attack upon Mr. Roe the natives had probably been following Mr. Hunter; and were doubtless deterred from attacking him by witnessing the destructive effects of his gun among a flight of c.o.c.katoos, five or six of which he brought away, and left as many more hopping about the gra.s.s wounded and making the woods re-echo with their screams. When Mr. Hunter parted from Mr. Roe the natives remained to watch the latter gentleman; and no sooner had he discharged his gun, which they found was of no use until it was reloaded, than they commenced their attack; and from the known dexterity of the natives of this country in throwing the spear it was not a little surprising that they missed him so repeatedly.

Before we embarked for the night I walked with Mr. Roe to the place where he was attacked, in order to look for the spears that had been thrown at him and for the cartridges he had lost; but as neither were found, we were revengeful enough to hope that the natives would burn their fingers with the powder, an event not at all unlikely to occur, from their ignorance of the dangerous effect of placing the cartridges near the fire, which they would be sure to do.

During our visit we were fortunate in having very fine weather; and although it was very hazy we did not experience that excessive heat which, from the advanced state of the season, had been expected. The thermometer ranged between 73 and 83 degrees; but the regularity and strength of the sea-breezes tended materially to keep the air cool and pleasant.

August 25.

On the 25th the gentlemen visited Sims' Island, where they found a considerable quant.i.ty of fresh water in holes that had apparently been dug for the purpose by the Malays. Among the insects which they brought back with them was a very fine species of cimex; it was found in great numbers upon the foliage of Hibiscus tiliaceus.

In the evening we left the bay.

August 26.

And the next morning pa.s.sed to the northward of New Year's Island in order to avoid the calm weather which was experienced at the same season last year.

Off the entrance of Van Diemen's Gulf (Dundas Strait) we pa.s.sed through large quant.i.ties of sea sawdust, some of which was put into a bottle; and when the process of putrefaction had taken place the substance sunk to the bottom and coloured the water with a crimson tinge.

1820. September 3.

After pa.s.sing the meridian of Cape Van Diemen our course was directed towards Captain Baudin's Banc des Holothuries near Cape Bougainville; but being impeded by calms and light winds did not reach it until the 3rd of September, when we pa.s.sed between its south-east extremity and Troughton Island. Before dark we pa.s.sed over the north extremity of the long reef to the westward of Cape Bougainville.

September 5.

The following day at noon we were near Condillac Island, after which a sea-breeze from the westward enabled us to pa.s.s Cape Voltaire, at which point our last year's survey terminated. When we were within the Cape we found an ebb-tide setting out of a bight, which trended deeply in to the southward and appeared to be studded with rocky islands. This adverse tide continued to run all the evening and prevented our reaching the bottom; so that at sunset we dropped the anchor a few miles to the south of Cape Voltaire.

To the westward of this position we counted twenty-three islands, the northernmost of which were supposed to be the Montalivet Isles of Baudin.

The whole have an uninteresting and rocky appearance but are not altogether dest.i.tute of vegetation: a greenish tinge upon the nearest islet saved them from being condemned as absolutely sterile.

September 6.

The next morning a boat visited the outer north-easternmost islet, named in the chart Water Island, which was found to be as rocky in reality as it was in appearance. It is formed of a hard granular quartzose sandstone, of a bluish-gray colour; the basis is disposed in horizontal strata but the surface is covered with large amorphous rocks of the same character that have evidently been detached and heaped together by some convulsion of nature: over these a shallow soil is sprinkled, which nourishes our old acquaintance spinifex, and a variety of plants of which Mr. Cunningham collected more than twenty distinct known genera. The exposed surfaces of the rocks are coloured by the oxide of iron, which is so generally the case upon the northern and north-western coasts that the name of Red Coast might with some degree of propriety be applied to a great portion of this continent.

Mr. Hunter found a large quant.i.ty of bulbous-rooted plants; they proved to be a liliaceous plant of the same species as those which we had before found upon Sims' Island, the islands of Flinders' Group on the eastern coast, and at Percy Island.