Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley - Volume 2 - John MacGillivray (best novels of all time .txt) 📗

vicinity there was seldom much grass. The grasses generally growing there were annual kinds. It was Mr. Kennedy's opinion that the creek we crossed this morning joined the river we left on the 16th, and formed the Mitchell, although the country hereabouts did not resemble the banks of the Mitchell, as described by Leichhardt; but the appearance of the country varies so much every few miles, particularly to the westward, that it is impossible to support an opposite opinion on this ground.

September 25.

As three of the horses could not be found this morning, four men were left behind to search for them while the rest of the party travelled on. They had not come up with us at about four o'clock, and being anxious to find water before dark, we proceeded along a narrow open valley covered with long grass and large pandanus trees, skirted on each side by rather scrubby forest land. At dark we reached a large waterhole. One of the men left behind shortly arrived, and stated that the rest had halted for the night. Mr. Kennedy being anxious to bring all the horses to water, and to have the party together, sent me back to conduct them to the camp, which I very soon did, even though it was dark, the track being very plain. We collected a great many nondas to-day and baked some of them with our bread, which was the only way we could eat them cooked; they were much better fresh from the trees, but we found them rather astringent. Spring, our best kangaroo dog, was unable to come up to the camp this day, being overpowered by the heat of the sun, a circumstance we all regretted, as he was a most excellent watchdog.

September 26.

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 passed 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, passed 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 grass, 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 circumference: they had large fan-shaped leaves, with slightly curved spines on the footstalk. It is a dioecious palm, the female plants bearing an immense quantity 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 grass 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 grasses, the perennial grass 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 grass on fire behind us, and the wind blowing from the eastward, and the grass growing thick and high, it rapidly gained upon us; we made all possible haste to some burned ground which we had seen on Saturday, 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 appetites 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 quantities 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 grass, 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 grass, meeting frequently with salt lagoons, surrounded by various salsolaceous plants. Near the edge of a saltwater 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 glass 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 glass is used by the natives in