The Following Letter Received From Mr. Oxley On His Arrival At Port
Stephens, On The 1st Of November Last, Is Now Published For General
Information On The Interesting Subject Of This Tour.
By his excellency the governor's command,
J. T. CAMPBELL, Secretary.
* * *
Port Stephens, November 1, 1818.
Sir,
I have the honour to inform your excellency, that I arrived at this port
to-day, and circumstances rendering it necessary that Mr. Evans should
proceed to Newcastle, I embrace the opportunity to make to your
excellency a brief report of the route pursued by the western expedition
entrusted to my direction.
My letter, dated the 22nd of June last, will have made your excellency
acquainted with the sanguine hopes I entertained, from the appearance of
the river, that its termination would be either in interior waters, or
coastwise. When I wrote that letter to your excellency, I certainly did
not anticipate the possibility, that a very few days farther travelling
would lead us to its termination as an accessible river.
On the 28th of June, having traced its course without the smallest
diminution or addition, about seventy miles farther to the
north-north-west, there being a slight fresh in the river, it overflowed
its banks, and although we were at the distance of near three miles from
it, the country was so perfectly level that the waters soon spread over
the ground on which we were. We had been for some days before travelling
over such very low ground, that the people in the boats finding the
country flooded, proceeded slowly; a circumstance which enabled me to
send them directions to return to the station we had quitted in the
morning, where the ground was a little more elevated. This spot being by
no means secure, it was arranged that the horses, with the provisions,
should return to the last high land we had quitted, a distance of sixteen
miles; and as it appeared to me that the body of water in the river was
too important to be much affected by the mere overflowing of its waters,
I determined to take the large boat, and in her to endeavour to discover
their point of discharge.
On the 2nd of July I proceeded in the boat down the river, and in the
course of the day went near thirty miles in a north-north-west course,
for ten of which there had been, strictly speaking, no land, as the flood
made the surrounding country a perfect sea: the banks of the river were
heavily timbered, and many large spaces within our view, covered with the
common reed, were also encircled by large trees. On the third, the main
channel of the river was much contracted but very deep, the banks being
under water from a foot to eighteen inches; the stream continued for
about twenty miles on the same course as yesterday, when we lost sight of
land and trees, the channel of the river winding through reeds, among
which the water was about three feet deep, the current having the same
direction as the river.
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