Salicornia Was Another Sure Indication Of Salt Water;
And, After About Seven Or Eight Miles, Our Course Was Intercepted By A
Broad Salt-Water Creek.
Its bed, however, was sandy, and the water
shallow, which enabled us to cross it a little higher up, without
difficulty.
We turned again to the N.W. by W., steering for one of the
numerous smokes of the natives' fires which were visible in every
direction. We soon came, however, to broad sands with deep impressions of
the tracks of emus, wallabies, and natives; and to sandy depressions
sloping towards narrow salt-water creeks densely fringed with Mangroves.
A large river was no doubt before us. To get out of this difficult
meshwork of salt-waters, I turned to the south-west, and continued in
this direction until the sands, Mangrove creeks, and Salicornias,
disappeared, and we were again fairly in the scrubs, which however we
found more open, and frequently interspersed with bloodwood and Pandanus.
I sent Charley and Brown in different directions to look for water, and a
small pool with brackish ferruginous nasty water was found, which made a
very miserable tea, and affected our bowels. In the Mangrove creeks we
found Telescopium, Pleurotoma; and heaps of oyster-shells, for the first
time on our journey. Arcas were frequent, but no Cythereas. The mussels
(Unios) of the slightly brackish water were small, but plentiful.
It was on this stage that we first met with a leafless species of
Bossiaea, from three to five feet high, with compressed stem, and
branches of the habit of Bossiaea scolopendrium, with yellow blossoms,
and smooth many-seeded pods little more than an inch long. This shrub was
one of the principal components of all the scrubs we passed from this
place to Limmen Bight, and was also found, though less frequently,
towards the centre of Arnheim's Land.
The day was exceedingly hot, though cloudy; the wind from the east: the
night cool, without wind.
When Brown and Charley rejoined us, the former appeared so much alarmed
and agitated, that I thought they had met some natives, and had received
some injury, although they said they had not. My imagination was working
on the possibility of an attack of the natives, and I consequently laid
myself down without taking my boots and trowsers off, to be ready at a
moment's notice, and rose several times in the course of the night to see
that the watches were strictly kept. In the morning watch, John Murphy
roused me by saying that he saw a native: I felt certain now that an
attack was about to be made upon us. I, therefore, immediately gave the
alarm, and every one had his gun ready, when it was discovered that our
own Brown was the man whom John had mistaken for a strange native. He had
left his couch without being observed, and, when he returned, it was too
dark to recognize him; he was, however, very near losing his life, or at
least being shot at, for his wild yells "tis me!
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 193 of 272
Words from 99912 to 100424
of 141354
