Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake Volume Ii Part 13

We travelled a good stage this morning before we found water--in a sandy creek, where the country seemed to fall slightly to the north-east. We still hoped to find a river running into Princess Charlotte's Bay.

September 27.

We proceeded North-East over alternating sandy ridges and marshy flats; the latter, though dry where we pa.s.sed over them, presented the appearance of being generally inundated. We camped by the side of a rocky creek, containing very little water.

September 28.

Just as we were about to start this morning, two natives, carrying a bundle of reeds and a basket, pa.s.sed within a short distance of our camp, and seemed to take no notice of us. Our sheep were not to be found, having rambled to a distance: although without a sheepfold, this was the first instance in which the sheep had strayed; they generally remained by the fire, towards which they were driven at night, till morning.

We had never seen a wild native dog during the journey. Our dog that we had left behind came into the camp to-night, very much exhausted, having travelled about thirty miles; he must have subsisted on nondas, as it was impossible he could have caught anything, and we had seen him eat them before. He died the following morning.

September 30.

After travelling a short distance we crossed a small river running eastward: for some distance down it, the water was brackish, and at spring-tide the salt water came up to our camp; but we obtained good water from a small lagoon near the camp. We proceeded over a large plain well covered with good gra.s.s, the soil stiff clay. We proceeded about five or six miles on this plain, turning westward towards a lagoon surrounded by Stravadiums and a few very large palms. We hoped to find water in it, but it was dry, and fearing we should not be able to reach water before dark if we proceeded in this direction, we thought it better to return to our camp.

October 1.

We had prayers this day as usual on Sundays, at eleven o'clock. We saw native fires at a distance to the north-east of our camp, but the natives did not come near us. I went up what we fancied was the river by which we had camped, but found it only a creek; but it had plenty of water in it at this season. There were several small lagoons near it. There were large drooping tea-trees (Melaleucas) growing on its banks, and large palm trees, of the same kind as those I had seen in the plain the day before, and which were by far the finest palms I had ever seen; the trunks were not very high, from fifteen to thirty feet in height, but very large in bulk, varying from six to eight feet in circ.u.mference: they had large fan-shaped leaves, with slightly curved spines on the footstalk. It is a dioecious palm, the female plants bearing an immense quant.i.ty of round fruit, about the size of a greengage plum, of a purple colour, and rather disagreeable flavour; the pulp covering the seed was very oily, and not a leaf to be seen on any of the fruit-bearing plants; the whole top consists of branches full of ripe and unripe seeds. Bushels of seeds were lying beneath some of the trees, it seeming that but few were eaten by birds or small animals. One of our party suffered severely from eating too freely of them as they brought on diarrhoea. I measured two or three of the leaves of the male plants, and those not of the largest size, and found them to measure six feet in the widest part, and four feet and half in the narrowest. These leaves were split by the wind into segments of various widths. The gra.s.s growing to the westward of our camp was not so high as that to the eastward, and appeared to consist of a larger proportion of annual gra.s.ses, the perennial gra.s.s growing only in tufts; near the river it was covered with an annual Ipomoea, of very strong growth; the leaves and blossoms were withered, but I obtained seeds. We shot three ducks to-day, and Wall killed a wallaby of a light grey colour, long soft fur, and rather bushy tail; he thought it new, and preserved the skin. I also obtained specimens of a beautiful plant, a shrub about two feet high, with white sweet-scented blossoms, belonging to the natural order Rubiaceae, and several other interesting plants.

Lately, however, my specimens had been very much spoiled, being torn from the horse's back so frequently, that I grew disheartened to see all the efforts I had made, made in vain, although I still took every method to preserve them from injury.

October 2.

This morning we proceeded across the plain, and when we had advanced about two miles upon it, we discovered that the natives had set the gra.s.s on fire behind us, and the wind blowing from the eastward, and the gra.s.s growing thick and high, it rapidly gained upon us; we made all possible haste to some burned ground which we had seen on Sat.u.r.day, and reached it only a few minutes before the fire. We were enveloped in smoke and ashes, but fortunately no one was burned. The natives did not come near us, although no doubt they watched us, and saw us proceeding to the part of the plain that was burned. The plain extended a great distance to the westward, and in crossing it one of our horses knocked up and could travel no longer; Mr. Kennedy ordered him to be bled, and we not liking to lose the blood, boiled it as a blood-pudding with a little flour, and in the situation we were, we enjoyed it very much.

October 3.

We killed the horse this morning as he was not able to stand, and dried the meat to carry with us; we made a small stage of saplings on which to dry the meat, which was cut off close to the bone as clean as possible, and then cut in thin slices, and laid on the stage in the sun to dry, and the sun being very hot, it dried well; the heart, liver, and kidneys were parboiled, and cut up fine, and mixed with the blood of the horse and about three pounds of flour; they made four puddings, with which, after they had boiled about four hours, we satisfied our appet.i.tes better than we had been able to do for some time: it was served up in the same manner as our usual rations, in equal parts, and each man had a right to reserve a portion of his mess till the next day, but very little was saved. Mr.

Kennedy found that it was even necessary to have the horseflesh watched whilst drying, finding that two or three of the party had secreted small quant.i.ties amongst their clothes; such precautions were quite necessary, as well in justice to the whole of the party, as to keep up the strength of all, which seemed to be very fast declining. At night we made a fire to smoke the meat, and to destroy the maggots, which were very numerous in it; we packed the meat in empty flour bags.

October 4.

We proceeded northward over small sandy plains, covered with annual gra.s.s, which was now very much withered, and through belts of dwarf bushy Melaleucas and Banksias. We were not far from Princess Charlotte's Bay, Jane's Table Land being in sight. We came to the side of a salt lagoon, very nearly dry; we found it covered with salt, of which we took about 20 pounds, which was as much as we could carry, but even this was a very seasonable help; we rubbed about two pounds of it into our meat. We encamped by a small creek, but the water was brackish, and not being able to find any other we were obliged to make use of it. One of our horses was slightly hurt by a stump of a mangrove tree. All we got from the horse we last killed was sixty-five pounds of meat.

October 5 and 6.

We travelled over sandy soil, but with little gra.s.s, meeting frequently with salt lagoons, surrounded by various salsolaceous plants. Near the edge of a salt.w.a.ter creek we found a native camp, composed of about seven or eight huts, curiously and neatly built of a conical form; all very nearly of the same size, about five and a half feet in diameter at the base, and six and a half feet high. They were made by placing saplings in the ground in a slanting position, which were tied together at the top and woven inside like wickerwork, with strips of small bamboo canes. The whole was then covered with palm leaves, over which was a coating of tea-tree bark, very neatly fastened by strips of cane. They were substantially built, and would no doubt keep out the wet effectually.

They seemed to be occupied by the natives only in the rainy season, as, from their appearance, they had not been inhabited for some time. I entered one of them through a small arched opening of about twenty inches or two feet high, and found three or four nets, made with thin strips of cane, about five feet long, with an opening of about eight inches in diameter at one end, getting gradually smaller for about four feet, where there was a small opening into a large round sort of basket. These nets were laid by the natives in narrow channels to catch fish, as well as in the tracks of small animals, such as rats and bandicoots, for the purpose of trapping them. There were also some pieces of gla.s.s bottle in the hut, carefully wrapped in bark and placed in a very neat basket, made in the shape of a lady's reticule. The gla.s.s is used by the natives in marking themselves: all of them being scarred on the arms and breast, while some were marked on the cheeks and forehead.

In the camp we thus discovered were small stone ovens, similar to those we had found in the camp at Rockingham Bay, as well as one with a large flat stone raised six or eight inches from the ground, and a fireplace of loose stones beneath. Near to one of the tents was a large stone hollowed out in the middle, and two or three round pebbles for pounding dried seeds, etc.

October 7 and 8.

Flat sandy ground, with occasional patches of scrub, composed of bushy Melaleucas, Hibiscus, Banksia, and several rambling plants, with a few large palms scattered in places; there was not much gra.s.s, except at intervals.

October 9.

This morning we came to a river, running into Princess Charlotte's Bay, in lat.i.tude 14 degrees 30 minutes South, longitude 143 degrees 56 minutes. It was deep, and about 100 yards wide, the water salt, and the tide was flowing up fast, and the banks were high. A few scattered mangroves, and a leguminous tree, with rough cordate leaves, and large one or two-seeded legumes, were growing on the banks. We were obliged to turn southerly for a short distance, and found what we had fancied to be a river to be only a small creek. We crossed it about twelve or fourteen miles from the sea, but the water was brackish. The trees on the sandy ground were broad-leafed Melaleucas, Grevilleas, and nondas, and by the waterholes which we occasionally saw, were Stravadiums and drooping Melaleucas. I also saw a species of Stravadium with racemes of white flowers, much longer than the others, with leaves ten inches long by four inches broad, and the trees thirty feet high. Keeping at a distance from the sea-coast to avoid the salt.w.a.ter creeks, and to obtain good gra.s.s for our horses, we halted in the middle of the day, and were visited by a great many natives, coming in all directions, and making a great noise.

They appeared to have been collecting nondas, as a great many of their women were carrying large basketfuls away. After the women were out of sight they made signs to us to go away. We got our horses together, and endeavoured to make them friendly, but our entreaties were disregarded, and the presents we offered them were treated with contempt. When we found they would not allow us to come near them, we packed our horses and prepared to start. They followed us at some distance, continually throwing spears after us for some time; one was thrown into the thigh of a horse, but fortunately not being barbed it was taken out, and the horse was not much injured. We then rode after them in two or three directions and fired at them, and they left us, and we saw no more of them.

October 11.

To-day, when halting in a place where there was no water, but good gra.s.s, a tribe of natives made their appearance, and appeared disposed to be friendly. We carefully collected our horses, and shortly after the natives drew near to us. We made them presents of a few fish-hooks and tin plates, and made signs to them that we wanted water. Several of them ran off, and in a few minutes returned with water in a vessel (if it may be so called) composed of pieces of bark tied together at each end, and they continued going backwards and forwards until they had brought enough to fill our cans, besides what we drank. They left us quite quietly.

October 12.

We proceeded along the creek by which we had encamped the night before; the water was brackish. We attempted to go through some mangroves to the beach, but did not succeed.

October 13.

Jackey, Taylor, and myself took three horses, and tried to get to the beach more to the northward than yesterday. We pa.s.sed through a belt of mangroves, where the ground was pretty firm, the tide coming up only occasionally; we then proceeded along a sandy ridge to the northward, when we found it succeeded by a salt.w.a.ter lagoon, surrounded by salsolaceous plants and mangroves, which it was impossible to get through. We returned to our camp, and here Mr. Kennedy abandoned the thought of going to the beach, as he felt sure H.M.S. Bramble (which was to have met us at the beginning of August) would have gone; our journey having occupied so much longer time than we could have possibly antic.i.p.ated. This consideration, combined with the great difficulty which seemed likely to ensue in obtaining water and feed for our horses, determined him to take a different direction.

October 15.

We had prayers as usual this day, being Sunday, at 11 o'clock; today we finished the consumption of all our sugar, except a very small quant.i.ty, which was reserved for any particular case of sickness.

October 16.

This morning a horse fell into a rocky waterhole, and finding it impossible to get him out alive, we killed him, and cured the flesh as before, drying it in the sun on a stage; the blood, heart, and liver furnished us with a good day's food. Our meat being well dried by five o'clock in the afternoon, we sprinkled some salt upon it, and put it in bags for the convenience of carrying. We left one of our round tents, and such other things as we could possibly spare behind us at the camp, as our horses were now so weak they could not carry their loads.

October 17 and 18.

Our travelling was very uneven, our horses giving us continual trouble from their frequent falls; we had a few narrow belts of scrub to cut through, but they were not very thick.

October 19.

Several of our horses were now quite unable to carry anything but the saddle; we pa.s.sed through open forest land, with a light soil, sub-soil clay, with isolated blocks of granite rock scattered about. We encamped by a rocky creek, with water in holes only; it ran westerly, and had fresh green feed on each side, the gra.s.s having been burned shortly before, and now growing up again.

October 20.

We pa.s.sed over a piece of stiff ground about two miles in extent, which appeared to have been the scene of a devastating hurricane. It was covered with fallen timber, which rendered it very difficult to cross.

The wind must have swept from the south-west to the north-east, and from the appearance of the saplings which were growing from the stumps of some of the trees which had been broken, this terrific storm appeared to have taken place about two years ago. Not a tree had been left standing in the part where we crossed, nor could we tell how far the devastation had extended to the south-west; but the ground to the north and east being swampy, and covered only with small Melaleucas and Banksias, the wind had not taken much effect. Many of the trees in the middle of the fallen timber measured two feet in diameter. Some were torn up by the roots, and the trunks of others were snapped off at various heights from the ground.

The lat.i.tude of our camp here was 13 degrees 35 minutes South.

October 21.

We killed another of our horses to-day, as he was too weak to stand.

October 22.

We got our meat well dried to-day, and having smoked it a little, packed it as before. Our stock of flour was now reduced to two hundred pounds weight, and many of the men growing very weak, we were obliged to increase our weekly ration a little. Three of the party, Douglas, Taylor, and Costigan, were suffering from diarrhoea, in consequence of having eaten too freely of the panda.n.u.s fruit. Their spirits began to fail them, and they frequently complained despairingly to Mr. Kennedy that they should never be able to reach Cape York. Although our horses were so very weak, these men were obliged to ride, being quite unable to walk far at a time. The country before us was very mountainous, but between the hills we found plenty of gra.s.s and water: to the south the whole country appeared to be on fire.

October 23 to 25.

We travelled during these days over a rocky mountainous country, interspersed with deep gullies and creeks, fringed with belts of scrub.

In these scrubs I saw the white-apple and the crimson scitamineous plant seen near Rockingham Bay; scattered over the country were a few cedar trees and Moreton Bay chestnuts, and some very fine timber trees belonging to the natural order Myrtaceae, upwards of sixty feet high, and three to four feet in diameter, with fine straight trunks.

October 26 to 28.