Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia Volume II Part 3

Upon this announcement of mine he burst into tears, deplored alternately his dying state and the loss of the bundle, and then poured forth a torrent of invectives against me, in the midst of which I quietly went on unfolding the treasured parcel and exposing to view the following articles: Three yards of thick heavy canvas; some duck which he had purloined; a large roll of sewing thread, ditto; a thick pea jacket which I had abandoned at the boats, and had, at his request, given to him; and various other old pieces of canvas and duck; also a great part of the cordage of one of the boats, which he had taken without permission.

When these various articles were produced it was difficult to tell which was the prevailing sentiment in the minds of some of the party--mirth at thus seeing the contents of the mysterious bundle exposed, or indignation that a man should have been so foolish as to endanger his own life and delay our movements for the sake of such a collection of trash. A pair of shoes and one or two useful articles were retained, the remainder were thrown away, and in a few minutes we were again under weigh for the spring of water.

HALT AT WATER PEAK.

Another hour's march brought us to the spring; and those who with me had been marching through a great part of the night gladly laid down to rest; but I soon roused myself again, being urged by the pangs of hunger.

Fortunately I had shot a crow in the morning, and now, gathering a few wild greens that grew about the water, I cooked a breakfast for myself and the native without being obliged to draw upon my little store of flour. This frugal repast having been washed down by a few mouthfuls of water, I resumed my meditations of the previous night.

CRITICAL SITUATION.

The following appeared to be our true position. We were about one hundred and ninety miles from Perth, in a direct line measured through the air.

None of the party had more than six or seven pounds of flour left; whilst I had myself but one pound and a half, and half a pound of arrowroot; the native had nothing left and was wholly dependant on me for his subsistence. Now we had been seven days on our route, and had made but little more than seventy miles, and as the men were much weaker than when they first started it appeared to me to be extremely problematical whether we should ever reach Perth unless some plan different from what we had hitherto pursued was adopted. And even granting that we did eventually make this point, it was evident that we must previously be subjected to wants and necessities of the most cruel and distressing nature.

NEW PLAN OF PROCEEDING.

Yet it was quite manifest from recent events that the majority of the party had not only made up their minds not to accelerate their movements, but had fully resolved to compel me to pursue their system of short marches and long halts. Being fully aware of the danger which threatened them, it remained for me to act with that decision which circ.u.mstances appeared to require, and to proceed by rapid and forced marches to Perth, whence a.s.sistance could be sent out to the remainder. For this purpose it was necessary that all those who accompanied me should be good walkers and resolute men; for if any accident happened to the portion of the party I took with me, arising either from want of energy, want of discipline, or any other causes, that portion of the party which remained behind would have been reduced to the last extremity.

DIVIDE THE PARTY, AND PROCEED WITH THE STRONGEST TO PERTH FOR a.s.sISTANCE.

ARRANGEMENTS AT STARTING.

Having formed this resolution, it became necessary to make a selection of those who were to accompany me. In determining however upon this point I had but little difficulty; for it was evident that those men who during our late toils had shown themselves the most capable of enduring hards.h.i.+ps, privations, and the fatigue of long and rapid marches, were those who were the best suited for the service I now destined them for.

The following was the division I made of the party: I named:

Corporal Auger, Corporal Coles, H. Woods, W. Hackney, Kaiber, the native,

as those who were to accompany me, and left the remainder under the command of Mr. Walker.

EMBARRa.s.sMENT REGARDING THE CHART.

In making my arrangements with Mr. Walker a very serious difficulty arose upon his part, and one from which I immediately augured the worst of consequences. On quitting the boats I brought away with me Captain King's chart of the coast between North-west Cape and Cape Leeuwin, and had hitherto carried it along with my papers and sketches. I wished Mr.

Walker to take this chart with him for the purpose of recognising his position by means of the islands and headlands as he advanced along the coast. No inducements upon my part could however persuade him to take charge of it. It was in vain that I urged on him the well known fact that nothing encourages men in a long journey so much as knowing the exact distance they have travelled and what extent of country they have still left to traverse. It was in vain that I a.s.sured him he would, from his inexperience in calculating distances in the bush, soon get confused in his reckoning; and that the men, finding out his error, would lose all trust and confidence in him, whence would spring want of discipline and disorders of various kinds; he knew that I much valued this chart and had apparently taken it into his head that I wished to disenc.u.mber myself of it and to entail the duty of carrying it on him.

He at length proposed to me to allow him to cut the chart up, in which case he said he would carry on the part he wanted and leave the rest. I would not however part with so valuable a doc.u.ment, for it contained my route up to that point, and the public utility of the expedition mainly depended on the preservation of it. He next requested me to make a copy of it for him; this I a.s.sured him under existing circ.u.mstances it was utterly impossible for me to do with sufficient accuracy to answer the intended purpose, and I therefore would not attempt it. He then applied to Mr. Smith, who coincided in my opinion; but ever willing to oblige he made as accurate a copy as he could, which I in vain represented to Mr.

Walker he would find utterly useless. His unreasonable reluctance however I could not overcome.

POINT OF RENDEZVOUS FIXED.

The next matter to arrange was what place should be fixed on as the point of rendezvous to which a.s.sistance was to be sent to those who were left to follow with Mr. Walker. This was soon arranged. Mr. Smith had previously been with me to a place called Goonmarrarup, on the Moore River about fifty-five miles to the north of Perth; and it was agreed that the party should proceed along the coast as they best could until they made the Moore River, where I would have another party stationed with provisions to meet them; and in order that they might not pa.s.s this river it was settled that the party who went out to meet them should separate into two, one of which would remain at this point on the Moore River, about twelve miles from the sea, whilst the other was to proceed down to it, leaving, besides their tracks, marks to show where they had pa.s.sed; and then, in the event of not finding those they were in search of, this last detachment was to push still further northward to look for them.

As soon as the arrangements were concluded I a.s.sembled the men and publicly repeated these directions to them; and to such as Clotworthy I addressed strong admonitions as to their future conduct. Many of them did not appear to be in the least aware of the critical situation they were placed in; I however entertained great fears for the safety of some of them. Poor Smith was at this time in a very delicate state of health, and his courage and gentleness had so endeared him to me that the sight of his sickly face made me long to be on the march to send out help to him.

For Mr. Walker I had no fear; I have never known anyone endowed with a greater degree of patient endurance; indeed had he not, from a mistaken good nature, been too familiar with the men, no one could have been more admirably adapted for the trying position in which he was placed; and even as events turned out I doubt if anyone could have been found who would have endured more, or would have gone through greater exertions to save those under his command.

The party I left, and who were not required to proceed by forced marches, consisted of:

Mr. Walker, Mr. Smith, Thomas Ruston, C. Woods, T. Stiles, A. Clotworthy.

SEPARATION OF THE PARTY. ADVICE TO THOSE LEFT BEHIND.

Before parting with Mr. Walker and Mr. Smith I again urged them to push steadily onwards and never to idle for an instant; but I do not think that either of them were fully aware of the dangers they had to contend with. Poor Smith, as he squeezed my hand, begged me to send out a horse for him, if one could be procured, and also some tobacco; he said the only thing he dreaded was want of water.

Mr. Walker smiled and told me to look out for myself that he was not in Perth before me, and several others seemed to partic.i.p.ate in his feeling and to regard my plan of proceeding as the height of folly.

I left with Mr. Walker's party everything that was really useful, such as the cooking saucepan and the only hatchet we had. These were very valuable to them, for had they come into a gra.s.s-tree country they might have subsisted for a long time upon the tops of these trees, as Mr.

Elliott did upon a former occasion; for he together with two men lived upon them for fourteen days. This very useful implement they however threw away the second day after we parted. We also left them all the fis.h.i.+ng-hooks.

Mr. Walker's party instantly commenced on the system of halting, and instead of moving on in the afternoon remained where they were that day for the purpose of resting themselves.

The country we travelled over for the first two miles was pretty good, being a series of gra.s.sy plains. At this point we came to a belt of thick wood which we found exceedingly difficult to traverse. We then continued our south by east course for four miles further over undulating sandy downs, and halted for the night in a small clump of Banksia trees which afforded plenty of wood for our fires.

April 11.

About an hour before daylight I roused the party, and as soon as it was light enough to distinguish the surrounding objects we started. Our route lay along a series of undulating sandy hills which sloped down to a fertile plain, four or five miles in width, on the western side of which rose a low range of dunes, and beyond these was the sea. We found the walking along these hills very difficult on account of the p.r.i.c.kly scrub with which they were covered, and the general appearance of the country to the eastward was barren and unpromising.

COURSE IMPEDED BY A THICK WOOD.

The course I pursued was about south by east, but we soon found ourselves embarra.s.sed in thick woods through which it was almost impossible to force a way: the trees were not large but so matted together that it required my utmost exertions to prevail upon the men to persist in pus.h.i.+ng through them, indeed it will afterwards be found that these woods had a most disastrous effect upon the spirits of that portion of the party which followed me. It was however absolutely necessary to make our way through one of these which formed a belt of nearly a mile in width, running almost east and west as far as the eye could see in each direction.

I therefore gave a bold plunge into the bushes, followed by the native and slowly by the other men, who kept alternately groaning from fatigue and pain and uttering imprecations against the country they were in.

Having cleared this wood I turned rather more inland, and we pursued our route over barren scrubby plains, and, after having travelled about fifteen miles over this uninteresting description of country, we suddenly found ourselves on the top of a low range which overlooked a most luxuriant valley of about three miles in width, its general direction appearing to be from the east-south-east.

THE ARROWSMITH RIVER.

I immediately knew from the appearance of the country that we were near some large river; and whilst descending into the valley I indulged in speculations as to the size of that we were about to discover, and as to whether Providence would grant me once again to drink a draught of cool river water.

I soon however began to fear that my expectations were to be disappointed. We had already proceeded more than two miles of the distance across the valley; and although the soil was rich and good we had yet seen nothing but dry watercourses, inconsiderable in themselves yet apparently when united forming a large river. I still however entertained hopes of finding water, for I saw numerous tracks of natives about, and the whole of this valley was an extensive warran ground in which they had that very morning been digging for their favourite root.

At length, just as my patience began to wear out, we ascended, out of a dry watercourse, a rise rather more elevated than the others we had met with in crossing the valley; and from the summit of this a curious sight met our view: beneath us lay the dry bed of a large river, its depth at this point being between forty and fifty feet, and its breadth upwards of three hundred yards; it was at times subject to terrific inundations; for along its banks lay the trunks of immense trees, giants of the forest which had been washed down from the interior in the season of the floods; yet nothing now met our craving eyes but a vast sandy channel which scorched our eyeb.a.l.l.s as the rays of the sun were reflected back from its white glistening bed.

WATER FOUND IN IT BY DIGGING.

I picked out the most shady spot I could for the men to halt at, then descended into the bed of the river to search, with the native, for water; and immediately on sc.r.a.ping a hole a few inches deep in the bed of the river the water came streaming into it, for the sand composing the bottom of the watercourse was completely saturated, and I afterwards found that there were large pools of it immediately above and below where we were.

The wants of the men having been thus supplied I determined, as it was intensely hot, to halt for an hour or two; we each of us therefore ate a little doughboy, or piece of damper, and the men then lay down to rest.

As I sat musing alone the first thought that struck me was how providentially it happened that we had not fallen in with this river in the season of the floods, as our crossing it then would have been utterly impossible.

APPROACH OF NATIVES TO THE RIVER.

But my reveries were soon disturbed by hearing the call of a native from the opposite bank, and I roused up poor Kaiber from his sleep that he might ascertain what was going on upon the other side. His quick eyes soon detected natives moving about amongst the bushes; but on farther examination he ascertained that there was only one man, who walked as if he had been wounded, the rest of the party being made up of women and children, who were digging for roots. They were quite unconscious of our presence, and we lay snugly behind a bush, watching all their movements.

As soon as they had dug a sufficient quant.i.ty of roots for their purpose they descended to the bed of the river and walked up to a pool about one hundred yards above our position, where they all drank and then sat down to cook their roots. I ordered the men to keep themselves as quiet as possible so that we in no way disturbed these poor creatures; and when at length the party moved off we pa.s.sed them in a diagonal direction so as to give them an opportunity of seeing us without frightening them. When first we emerged into view they began to run away; but when they saw that we still moved steadily on without noticing them they were no longer alarmed, but stood still, gazing at us with the greatest wonder and amazement; the youngest children standing behind their mothers, peeping cautiously out at us; and many a strange thought must have pa.s.sed through the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of these natives as they saw us wind in regular order up the opposite hill. This tribe was the most northern one that I had seen wear the kangaroo-skin cloak.

Another mile and a half in a south by east direction brought us to a low range to the south of this river, which I named the Arrowsmith River after Mr. John Arrowsmith, the distinguished geographer. From this range we had a fine view of the rich valleys drained by this important stream.

MOUNT HORNER.

These valleys ran nearly north and south between the interior range and the sandy limestone range parallel to the coast on which we now were; but the river must also, of course, from its magnitude, penetrate the interior range, which was only distant about sixteen miles from us. A very remarkable peak in the latter, which bore east-north-east from this point, I named Mount Horner, after my friend Leonard Horner, Esquire.

It appears from the report of the party who came along the coast that this river loses itself in a large lake, between which and the sea a great bar of dry sand intervenes in the dry season; there is however a very fair proportion of good country in the neighbourhood of the Arrowsmith.

In the course of the evening we travelled six and a half miles further in a south-south-east direction, over barren, sandy, scrubby plains, which extended on all sides as far as the eye could see, and even the interior range appeared to be perfectly bare. Towards nightfall we were all quite worn out from the difficulty we had experienced in walking through the p.r.i.c.kly scrub, yet I could see no place that afforded sufficient wood to enable us to make a fire and, as most of us had no covering with us, and the nights were intensely cold, we had every prospect of pa.s.sing a most wretched one; but at length I spied two clumps of Banksia trees, the nearest of which we just reached as it became quite dark. The other clump was about a quarter of a mile to the eastward of us, at which I soon distinguished native fires; as the men were however much exhausted I thought it better not to mention this circ.u.mstance to them, and Kaiber and myself, who always slept at a little fire alone, kept a good look out during the night.