August 30. - Leaving the overseer to bring on the cart, I rode on a-head
down the watercourse to trace the continuance of the water. The road I
found to be very bad, and at twenty-three miles, upon tasting the water I
found it as salt as the sea, and the bed of the creek quite impracticable
for a cart; I therefore hurried back for seven miles, and halted the
party at the last good water-hole, which was about sixteen miles from our
yesterday's camp.
We had seen many ducks during the day, two of which I shot, and the black
boy found a nest with fresh eggs in it, so that we fared more luxuriously
than usual. The night set in very dark and windy, but no rain fell.
August 31. - This morning I sent the overseer back to the depot with the
cart and two horses, whilst I and the native boy proceeded on our route
on horseback, taking also a man leading a pack-horse to carry water for
us the first day. Following down the watercourse, we passed through some
imposing scenery, consisting of cliffs from six to eight hundred feet in
height, rising perpendicularly from their bases, below which were
recesses, into which the sun never shone, and whose gloomy grandeur
imparted a melancholy cast to the thoughts and feelings, in unison with
the sublimity of the scene around.
After travelling twelve miles from the camp, we got clear of the hills,
and found an open country before us to the north; through this we
proceeded for ten miles further, still following the direction of the
watercourse, and halting upon it for the night, after having made a stage
of twenty-two miles. We had tolerable grass for the horses, but were
obliged to give them water from the kegs.
At this place I was much astonished to see four white cockatoos, flying
about among the gum-trees in the watercourse, and immediately commenced a
narrow search for water, as I knew those birds did not frequently go far
away from it: there was not, however, a drop to be found anywhere, nor
the least sign of there having been any for a long time. What made the
circumstance of finding cockatoos here so surprising and unusual was,
that for the last two hundred miles we had never seen one at all. Where
then had these four birds come from? could it be that they had followed
under Flinders range from the south, and had strayed so far away from all
others of their kind, or had they come from some better country beyond
the desert by which I was surrounded, or how was that country to be
attained, supposing it to exist? Time only may reply to these queries,
but the occasion which prompted them was, to say the least,
extraordinary.
Towards night the sky became overcast with clouds, and as I saw that we
should have rain, I set to work with the boy and made a house of boughs
for our protection, but the man who accompanied us was too indolent to
take the same precaution, thinking probably that the rain would pass away
as it had often done before. In this, however, he was disappointed, for
the rain came down in torrents [Note 7 at end para.] - in an hour or two
the whole country was inundated, and he was taught a lesson of industry at
the expense of a thorough and unmitigated drenching.
[Note 7: This will not appear surprising, when the great amount of rain
which falls annually in some parts of Australia, is taken into account.
The Count Strzelecki gives 62.68 inches, as the average annual fall for
upwards of twenty years, at Port Macquarie. - At p. 193, that gentleman
remarks: - "The greatest fall of rain recorded in New South Wales, during
24 hours, amounted to 25 inches. (Port Jackson)."]
September 1. - This morning I sent the man back to the depot with the
pack-horse, with orders to the overseer to move back the party as rapidly
as possible towards Mount Arden, that by taking advantage of the rain we
might make a short route through the plains, and avoid the necessity of
going up among the rugged and stony watercourses of the hills.
This retrograde movement was rendered absolutely necessary from our
present position, for since we had wound through the hills to the north,
and come out upon the open plains, I saw that Flinders range had
terminated, and I now only wished to trace its northern termination so
far east as to enable me to see round it to the southward, as well as to
ascertain the character and appearance of the country to the north and to
the east; as soon therefore as the man had left, I proceeded at a course
of E. 35 degrees N. for a low and very distant elevation, apparently the
last of the hills to the eastward, this I named Mount Distance, for it
deceived us greatly as to the distance we were from it.
In passing through the plains, which were yesterday so arid and dry, I
found immense pools, nay almost large reaches of water lodged in the
hollows, and in which boats might have floated. Such was the result of
only an hour or two's rain, whilst the ground itself, formerly so hard,
was soft and boggy in the extreme, rendering progress much slower and
more fatiguing to the horses than it otherwise would have been. By
steadily persevering we made a stage of thirty-five miles, but were
obliged to encamp at night some miles short of the little height I had
been steering for.
