I Therefore Followed The Fall Of The
Country To The North-East; And, In A Short Time, Came To The Sea-Side.
We
compared our little map of the harbour of Port Essington with the
configuration of the bay before us, but nothing would agree exactly,
although it bore a general resemblance to Raffles Bay.
A narrow belt of brush covered the approaches to the water; but the
scarlet Eugenia grew on the sandy flats towards the hilly forest; where
we also found a new tree, a species of Anacardium, which the natives
called "Lugula;" it bore a red succulent fruit, formed by the enlargement
of the stalk, with a greyish one-seeded nut outside, like Exocarpus. The
fruit was extremely refreshing; the envelope, however, contained such an
acrid juice that it ate into and discoloured my skin, and raised blisters
wherever it touched it: these blisters were not only followed by a simple
excoriation, but by a deep and painful ulceration. In the forest, we met
with some few small Seaforthia palms, the young shoots of which we
obtained with great difficulty, not then knowing how easily the natives
strip them of the surrounding leaves and leafstalks. I followed a a well
beaten foot-path of the natives to the northward, crossed a creek, in the
mangrove swamp of which another horse was bogged, which we extricated
after great exertion; and, after two or three miles, came to a large
fresh-water swamp (Marair) on which we encamped. The sun had long set,
and our cattle, as well as ourselves, were miserably tired.
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