Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia Volume I Part 10

I plunged in and very soon found myself caught in a tideway so violent that resistance to its force, so as either to get on or return, appeared at the moment hopeless.* My left hand, in which I held the pistol, was called into requisition to save my life; for the stream washed the cap from my head and, the cap then filling with water, and being carried down by the strong current, the chin-strap caught round my neck and nearly throttled me as I dragged it after me through the water; whilst the loose folds of my s.h.i.+rt, being washed out to seawards by the tide, kept getting entangled with my arm. I grew weak and faint but still swam my best, and at last I providentially reached a reef of rocks which projected from the opposite sh.o.r.e, and to which I clung until I had somewhat regained my strength.

(*Footnote. I should state that the rise and fall of tide here is thirty-eight feet.)

DANGER FROM NATIVES.

I then clambered up on the rocks, and from thence made my way to the beach; but no sooner had I gained it than I heard a native call from the top of the cliffs, and the answering cries of his comrades rang through the wood as they followed me along; my pistol was so thoroughly soaked in my pa.s.sage across the inlet that it was quite useless except as a club.

To attempt to swim back again after the narrow escape I had just had would have been madness; besides which if I had succeeded I should have lost the object for which I had put my life at hazard. Nothing therefore was left but to walk along sh.o.r.e to the schooner, trusting, in my defenceless state, that I might not fall in with any natives. It was now dark and the sh.o.r.e was so broken and rocky that I got terribly cut and bruised, and was, moreover, so weak from my exertions in swimming that when I arrived opposite the vessel I could scarcely hail. Some of those on board however heard me (as I found afterwards) and shouted in reply; but their voices never reached my ears, and I imagined they were too far for I could not now see the vessel.

I made one or two more efforts to hail the Lynher, but the noise I made had now attracted the notice of the natives and I heard their cries in several directions round me; this rendered my situation an unpleasant one for I was worn out, naked, and defenceless: at first I thought to return and rejoin my party, and even turned back for a short distance with this intention, but I found myself too weak for such an undertaking and changed my plans; resolving to remain nearly opposite to the vessel until the morning, and resting my chance of safety upon being discovered from it before the natives found me.

TAKEN UP BY THE LYNHER'S BOAT.

With this intent I returned to the position from which I had lately hailed, and crept into a hole in the rocks whence I could still occasionally hear the calls of the natives; but, being thoroughly worn out, I soon forgot my toils and dangers in a very sound and comfortable sleep. I might have slept for some two hours when I was roused by hearing a voice shout "Mr. Grey;" still however feeling rather distrustful of the truth of my mental impressions, and unwilling to betray my whereabouts to the natives, I returned no answer, but, putting out my head from my secret place of rest, I waited patiently for a solution of my doubts. But again I certainly heard the same voice shout "Mr. Grey," and I moreover now distinctly recognised the noise of oars working in the rowlocks; I therefore hailed "Lynher, ahoy," and all my doubts were completely put at rest by the hearty cheers which greeted my ear as Mr. Smith, the mate of the schooner, called out, "Where shall we pull in, Sir?"

FORTUNATE DELIVERY AND THE PARTY REGAIN THE LYNHER.

In a few minutes more I was in the boat, and rejoiced to find all the party safely there before me. My next question was, "Have you a little water here?" "Plenty, Sir," answered Corporal Cole as he handed me a little, which I greedily swallowed.

Their adventures were soon related to me. The party under Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton, being on an exposed part of the coast, the flash of their guns had been seen after dark, and the Captain despatched a boat from the schooner to pull along sh.o.r.e. This boat first of all found Coles near where I had quitted him, and he directed them to the others; the boat, having picked them up, then returned for Coles, and heard from him the intentions with which I had attempted to swim the arm of the sea; but as he had never seen me reach the opposite bank, and the inlet was of very considerable width, they had, up to the moment of finding me, felt very serious misgivings as to my fate.

I did not know till afterwards that the water Corporal Coles had handed to me on entering the boat was all they had on board when he was picked up, and that, although suffering severely from thirst, Coles would not touch a drop as long as he retained any hope that I might be found and be in want of it.

RETURN OF ALL ON BOARD.

We were now however safe again, and as all had borne themselves well under the difficulties to which they had been exposed, more particularly Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton, to whom the credit is due of having, by his personal example and influence, successfully brought on the party to the point of their embarkation, it was now pleasant to revert to the trials we had pa.s.sed, and to recall to one another's recollection each minute circ.u.mstance of our day's adventures; and when we were again on board and had turned in for the night I could not help feeling a deep sense of grat.i.tude to that Providence who, in so brief a s.p.a.ce, had preserved me through so many perils.

CHAPTER 5. AT HANOVER BAY.

PLAGUE OF FLIES.

December 4.

To sleep after sunrise was impossible on account of the number of flies which kept buzzing about the face. To open our mouths was dangerous. In they flew, and mysteriously disappeared, to be rapidly ejected again in a violent fit of coughing; and into the eyes, when unclosed, they soon found their way and, by inserting the proboscis and sucking, speedily made them sore; neither were the nostrils safe from their attacks, which were made simultaneously on all points, and in mult.i.tudes. This was a very troublesome annoyance, but I afterwards found it to be a very general one throughout all the unoccupied portions of Australia; although in general the further north you go in this continent the more intolerable does the fly nuisance become.

Sunrise offered a very beautiful spectacle; the water was quite unruffled, but the motion communicated by the tides was so great that, although there was not a breath of air stirring, the sea heaved slowly with a grand and majestic motion. On two sides the view was bounded by lofty cliffs, from three to four hundred feet high, lightly wooded at their summits, and broken by wide openings, into which ran arms of the sea, forming gloomy channels of communication with the interior country; whilst on each side of their entrances the huge cliffs rose, like the pillars of some gigantic portal.

In front of us lay a smooth sandy beach, beyond which rose gradually a high wooded country, and behind us was the sea, studded with numerous islands of every variety of form.

ENTRANCE TO PRINCE REGENT'S RIVER.

I was too much tired by the fatigues of the night before to enjoy the scene with the full delight I should otherwise have done; the bruises I had received made me feel so stiff and sore that the slightest movement was painful; the rainy season was however now so near that it would not do to lose a single day of preparation. Directly after breakfast therefore, whilst one boat went off to search for fresh water and a convenient spot to land the stores at, I accompanied the Captain of the vessel in another up Prince Regent's River.

EFFECT OF TIDES.

In general the openings to these rivers from the sea are very narrow, forming gorges which terminate in extensive basins, some fifteen or twenty miles inland; the levels of these reservoirs are subject to be raised thirty-seven feet by every tide through their funnel-like entrances, along which the waters consequently pour with a velocity of which it is difficult to form any adequate idea. By such a tide were we swept along as we entered this river by its southern mouth.

On each side of us rose lofty red sandstone cliffs; sometimes quite precipitous, sometimes, from ancient landslips, shelving gradually down to the water, and at these points covered with a dense tropical vegetation.

GREEN ANTS.

At several such places we landed, but always found the ascent to the interior so covered with large loose rocks that it would have been impossible to have disembarked stores or stock on any. The thickness of the vegetation made it difficult to force a way through, and whenever, in attempting so to do, a tree was shaken, numbers of a large green sort of ant fell from the boughs on the unhappy trespa.s.ser and, making the best of their way to the back of his neck, gave warning by a series of most painful bites that he was encroaching on their domain. Yet it was sometimes ludicrous to see one of the party momentarily stamping and roaring with pain, as he cried out to a companion to hasten and a.s.sist him in getting rid of an enemy at once so diminutive and so troublesome.

PARRAKEETS.

We saw a great number of beautiful parakeets, as well as a remarkable hawk of a bright cinnamon colour, with a milk-white head and neck. As there was no apparent probability of our finding hereabouts a spot suited to land our stock and stores at we returned in the afternoon to the schooner, and found that the party in the other boat had been as unsuccessful as ourselves.

DESCRIPTION OF LANDING-PLACE, AND ENCAMPMENT AT HANOVER BAY.

December 5.

The long-boat was this morning despatched to the ravine where we had procured water on the first day of our landing to bring a few casks for immediate use, and to examine the country again in that direction; whilst I accompanied the Captain to examine the inlet at which Captain King had watered in his visit to these parts, in 1821.

WATERING PLACE AT HANOVER BAY.

The approach to this watering-place was through a deep narrow channel, bounded on each side by high cliffs, against which our voices echoed and sounded strangely; whilst from the quant.i.ty of light which the cliffs excluded a solemn sombre hue was imparted to the scene. Channels similar to the main one branched off on each side; they were however so narrow that the dense vegetation which grew on their sides nearly met in the centre, giving them an appearance of dark and refres.h.i.+ng coolness; most of these terminated in cascades, now dry, but down which the water in the rainy seasons pours in torrents: at the foot of some of these cascades were deep cavities, or natural basins, worn in the solid rock by the falling of the water, and these were still full of the clearest cool water, in which sported small insects and animals of kinds quite unknown to me.

As we were swept up the main opening by the tide and sea-breeze its width gradually contracted, till at last we came to a small island bearing a single large mangrove tree, which we named One Tree Island. The sh.o.r.es now became thickly wooded with mangroves, from the boughs of which depended in cl.u.s.ters small but well-flavoured oysters, and soon after pa.s.sing the island we found our farther progress arrested by large rounded blocks of sandstone, from amongst which fresh water came pouring in a hundred little cascades.

BEAUTIFUL RAVINE.

We here quitted the boat to enter a deep and picturesque ravine, of which the mean breadth was only one hundred and forty-seven feet, bounded on each side by perpendicular cliffs from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high; in the centre ran a clear stream, sometimes forming deep and extensive pools, sometimes divided into innumerable little rills which gurgled along through a dense and matted vegetation; and bordered on each side of the main bed by a lofty species of Eucalyptus, with a bark resembling layers of coa.r.s.e white paper, and a foliage pendant and graceful; whilst the great height of these trees for they raised their heads above the cliffs, contrasted strangely with the narrowness of the ravine in which they grew. The s.p.a.ce between these trees and the cliffs was filled by a dense forest, princ.i.p.ally composed of the Panda.n.u.s and wild nutmeg trees. Rich gra.s.ses and climbing plants occupied the interval and twined around the trees, whilst parakeets of the most vivid colours filled the wood with their cries. Nothing could be more striking than this singular and novel scene; and we were all delighted as we wound our way up the beautiful ravine.

The same character continued for the next mile or two, whilst occasionally branch valleys of similar character ran off from a main one, giving it at these points a much greater width. The summit of the cliffs was found to be generally a rocky sandy tableland, thinly wooded; and from what I had seen it appeared to me that I was not likely to find a place better adapted for landing the stores than the main ravine.

On embarking to return we could perceive no sign of One Tree Island; and as we swept down towards the sea the leafy top of a tree seen in the clear water under the boat was the only evidence of its existence; though a few hours ago it had formed so prominent an object.

FATE OF TWO OF THE DOGS.

The long-boat returned to the vessel half an hour after us and brought eighty gallons of water; but the spot whence it was obtained had been found very inconvenient for the purpose. At the waterhole they had met Ranger, the dog we lost the first day; but he appeared quite mad, and without recognising any of them ran wildly away into the woods. The body of poor Ringhalz was also found, who had died on the spot where he fell.

LABOUR OF DISEMBARKING STORES.

December 6.

A party landed with me soon after dawn at the same point as yesterday, for the purpose of selecting the spot at which to fix our temporary encampment. We traced the valley for about four miles through scenery precisely similar to that which we had found before; many branch valleys ran of from the main one and differed from it in no other respect but that they were much narrower. The most favourable spot I could find for our purpose was distant about half a mile from the landing-place and situated at the junction of two valleys, upon a neck of land which ran out from the base of the cliffs. This was the nearest point to the sea at which we should have been safe from any sudden inundation; it combined, moreover, the advantages of affording a good supply of food and water for the stock, of not being within reach of missiles thrown from the cliffs, and at the same time of being situated close to an easy ascent to their summit. I should have preferred pitching the encampment on the tableland at the top, but the labour of carrying the stores up so precipitous an ascent would have been too great for the men, and would have delayed our movements for a longer time than I thought prudent.

PREPARATIONS FOR ENCAMPING.

Having selected the point for our encampment the next task was to form a pathway to and from the landing-place; and this, on account of the rocky, broken nature of the ground, was one of no slight difficulty. We first set fire to the bush, and being thus enabled to see our way a little we commenced moving the rocks and stones, and continued this operation until near sunset, when we returned on board.

NATIVES SEEN.

December 7.

We landed again early this morning and went on working at the pathway.

The men dined on sh.o.r.e at noon, about which time it was nearly low-water.

We had repeatedly seen footmarks of the natives in the mud, and this probably was a favourite fis.h.i.+ng resort of theirs, for this day they came upon the cliffs over our heads and shouted at us, as if to try and frighten us away. Finding however that this produced no effect, they threw down some large stones at us and then decamped.