I Returned To My Party, And In Company With Them Surprised The Native Camp; We Found There Eight Women And Twelve Children, Just On The Point Of Departing With Their Infants In Their Cloaks On Their Backs:

On seeing us, they seized each other by the hand, formed a circle, and threw themselves on the ground, with their heads and faces covered.

Unwilling to add to their evident terror, we only remained a few minutes, during which time the children frequently peeped at us from beneath their clothes; indeed, they seemed more surprised than alarmed: the mothers kept uttering a low and mournful cry, as if entreating mercy. In the camp were several spears, or rather lances, as they were much too ponderous to be thrown by the arm; these were jagged: there were also some elamongs (shields), clubs, chisels, and several workbags filled with every thing necessary for the toilet of a native belle; namely, paint and feathers, necklaces of teeth, and nets for the head, with thread formed of the sinews of the opossum's tail for making their cloaks. The men belonging to the camp were heard shouting at no great distance: their affection for their families was not, however, sufficiently powerful to induce them to attempt their rescue from the hands of such unfabulous centaurs, as we doubtless appeared to them. The boats met with no interruption, the river continuing a fine and even stream, running at the rate of a mile and a half per hour: it was in places very narrow, and our astonishment would have been excited that such a channel should contain the powerful body of water falling into it, if we had not found its medium depth to be from twenty to thirty feet. The height of the banks is not more than seven feet above the water, and they appeared to have been flooded to that height. It did not seem that back from the river, beyond three or four miles, the country was ever flooded, except by the waters which would fall on its surface in rainy seasons; it was, however, now quite dry, and the hollows of the surface bore evidence of a long continued drought. The course of the river still continued to the north-north-west. The rocks composing Mount Harris are apparently basaltic, the whole seeming to have been shot up in points. the angles of which are complete. The stones are very heavy and compact, and when dashed against each other were extremely sonorous.

June 28. - Remained here this day for the purpose of rest and refreshment: the grass and country poor, and covered with acacia trees and small eucalypti in our immediate vicinity. Despatched two men to view the country to the north-east. The botanical collector crossed the river and ascended Mount Forster, on which he was fortunate enough to procure many plants seemingly new: he thought he saw a branch of the river separating from it and running to the north-west, whilst the river itself continued to go northerly. The account brought by the men in the evening was far from flattering; they had been out ten or twelve miles to the north and east, and found the country as bad as can be imagined; in fact, a dry morass, with higher land, free from floods, but overrun with brushes, among which a few pines were scattered: they saw no water, and but little game of any kind.

June 29. - As we proceeded down the river, the country gradually became much lower in its immediate vicinity; and between four and five miles from our resting-place it was even with the banks, and in some places overflowed them. All travelling near the river with horses was at once interrupted, and this was the more perplexing as it rendered the communication with the boats uncertain, and liable to be cut off altogether. Finding that those marshes were only impassable for a mile or little more from the river, and that occasionally we could approach within one hundred yards of it, the horses were directed to keep round the edge of them, making for the river whenever practicable, and firing guns to let the boats know our situation. At two o'clock in the after. noon we stopped, after going about ten miles and a half, about one hundred and fifty yards from the river. which we could not approach nearer by reason of wet and boggy marshes; in fact, the place where we stopped is of the same description, but now (fortunately for us) dry. The country north-east of us, along the dry edge of which we were obliged to keep, is as bad as possible, being in wet seasons full of water-holes, and consequently impassable. The river still continues undiminished, as we find that the branches and small streams that frequently run from it join it again at short distances, and that they owe their existence at this time to the full state of the river, which is certainly some feet above its usual level. The breadth and depth of the river were various throughout the day: in the places where it overflowed its banks, there was not more than from ten to twelve feet; in others, where it ran very broad, but was confined within them, fifteen feet; and in narrower places, under the same circumstances, upwards of twenty feet. Thus it seemed to vary with the capacity of the channel to contain its waters, which were very muddy, the current running at a medium rate of a mile per hour. The boats arrived at about half past four o'clock, meeting nothing to interrupt them.

June 30. - After making every arrangement that we could devise to ensure our keeping company with the boats, we proceeded down the river. Our progress was, however, interrupted much sooner than I anticipated; for we had scarcely gone six miles, and never nearer to the river than from one to two miles, when we perceived that the waters which had overflowed the banks were spreading over the plains on which we were travelling, and that with a rapidity which precluded any hope of making the river again to the north-west by north, in which direction we imagined it to run for some distance, when its course appeared to take a more northerly direction.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 52 of 94
Words from 52079 to 53138 of 95539