Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake Volume I Part 10

A small low wooded islet off Cape Direction, where I landed for a few hours, was found to be composed entirely of dead coral with thickets of mangrove and other bushes, and presented no feature worthy of further notice. We were detained at an anchorage near Cape Weymouth for seven days by the haziness of the weather, which obscured distant points essential to the connexion of the survey.

PIPER ISLETS.

After having anch.o.r.ed once for the night under the lee of reef e of King's chart--one of the most extensive we had hitherto seen, being fourteen miles in length--on September 26th, the s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed under the largest of the Piper Islets.

This group consists of four low bushy and wooded islets, situated on two reefs separated by a deep channel. The larger of the two on the south-eastern reef, off which the s.h.i.+p lay, is about half a mile in circ.u.mference. The trees are chiefly a kind of Erythrina, conspicuous from its light-coloured trunk and leafless branches; one of the most abundant plants is a Capparis, with long drooping branches, occasionally a.s.sisted by a Cissus and a Melotria, in forming small shady harbours. In the evening, vast numbers of white pigeons came over from the mainland to roost, and of course, all the fowling-pieces were put in requisition.

Some deep pits dug in the centre of the island were perfectly dry, and are probably so during the latter half of the dry season, or after the month of July. On this island we observed the remains of a small establishment for curing trepang--a large seaslug found on the reefs and in shoal water, const.i.tuting a valuable article of commerce in the China market, where in a dried state it fetches, according to quality, from 5 to 200 pounds a ton. This establishment had been put up by the crew of a small vessel from Sydney, and several such have at various times made voyages along this coast and in Torres Strait, collecting trepang and tortoisesh.e.l.l, the latter procured from the natives by barter.

YOUNG ISLAND.

September 28th.

On our way to the northward today, we pa.s.sed Young Island, of King, which had been previously examined in one of our boats, and found to be merely a reef covered at high-water. Twenty-nine years before it was an embryo islet with two small trees upon it. And as the subject of the rate of increase of a coral reef, and of the formation of an island upon it, is a subject of interest and of great practical importance, I give below in a note* two records of the former appearance of Young Island.

(*Footnote. "...Pa.s.sed at about three-quarters of a mile to the northward of a small rocky shoal, on which were two small trees. This particular is recorded as it may be interesting at some future time, to watch the progress of this islet, which is now in an infant state; it was named on the occasion Young Island." Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, performed between the years 1818 and 1822, by Captain P.P. King, R.N., volume 1 page 226. Its appearance in 1839 is described as "an elevated reef, with one small mangrove growing on the highest part." Stokes' Voyage of the Beagle volume 1 page 57.)

September 29th.

Pa.s.sing inside of Haggerstone Island, we rounded Sir Everard Home's group and anch.o.r.ed under Sunday Island, where the Bramble joined us after a month's absence. This is a small, high, rocky island, of flesh-coloured compact felspar. On one side is a large patch of brush with some mangroves and a coral reef.

BIRD ISLES.

A few days afterwards we ran down to the Bird Isles, and anch.o.r.ed. They are three low, wooded islets, one detached from the other two, which are situated on the margin of a circular reef.

NATIVES IN DISTRESS.

On the north-west island we saw a small party of natives from the mainland, consisting of two men and a boy, in great distress from want of water, until Lieutenant Yule kindly supplied their wants. They had been wind-bound here for several days, the weather for some time previously having been too boisterous to admit of attempting to reach the sh.o.r.e, although only a few miles distant, in their split and patched-up canoe.

This was of small size, the hollowed-out trunk of a tree, with a double outrigger, and altogether a poor imitation of that used by the islanders of Torres Strait; the paddles were of rude workmans.h.i.+p, shaped like a long-handled cricket-bat. Their spears and throwing sticks were of the same kind as those in use at Cape York, to be afterwards described. These people were wretched specimens of their race, lean and lanky, and one was suffering from ophthalmia, looking quite a miserable object; they had come here in search of turtle--as I understood. Each of the men had lost a front tooth, and one had the oval cicatrix on the right shoulder, characteristic of the northern natives, an imitation of that of the islanders. They showed little curiosity, and trembled with fear, as if suspicious of our intentions. I made a fruitless attempt to pick up some sc.r.a.ps of their language; they understood the word powd or peace of Torres Strait.

On this island the princ.i.p.al trees are the leafless Erythrina, with waxy, pink flowers. Great numbers of pigeons resorted here to roost. I found here a large colony of that rare and beautiful tern, Sterna melanauchen, and mixed up with them a few individuals of the still rarer Sterna gracilis.

CAIRNCROSS ISLAND.

We anch.o.r.ed under Cairncross Island, on the afternoon of September 3rd, and remained during the following day. The island is about a quarter of a mile in length, low and sandy, covered in the centre with tall trees, and on the outskirts with smaller ones and bushes. These large trees (Pisonia grandis) form very conspicuous objects from their great dimensions, their smooth, light bark, and leafless, dead appearance. Some are from eighty to one hundred feet in height, with a circ.u.mference at the base of twenty feet. The wood, however, is too soft to be useful as timber. Nowhere had we seen the Torres Strait pigeon in such prodigious numbers as here, crossing over in small flocks to roost, and returning in the morning; yet many remained all day feeding on the red, plum-like fruit of Mimusops kaukii. In the first evening not less than one hundred and fifty-nine pigeons were brought off after an hour's work by seven shooters, and next day a still greater number were procured. Being large and well flavoured birds, they formed no inconsiderable addition to our bill of fare, and appeared on the table at every meal, subjected to every possible variety of cooking. Some megapodii also were shot, and many eggs of a fine tern, Onychoprion panaya, were picked up.

CHAPTER 1.4.

Water the s.h.i.+p.

Vessel with Supplies arrives.

Natives at Cape York.

Description of the Country and its Productions.

Port Albany considered as a Depot for Steamers.

Sail from Cape York and arrive at Port Essington.

Condition of the Place.

History of the Settlement.

Would be useless as a Colony.

Aborigines.

Leave Port Essington.

Arrive at Sydney.

At length, on October 7th, we reached Cape York, and anch.o.r.ed in the northern entrance to Port Albany. At daylight next morning two parties were sent in various directions in search of water. I found no traces of natives in Evans Bay, but at another place, while digging in the bed of a watercourse, we were joined by a small party of them, one of whom turned out to be an old acquaintance. They seemed to be quite at home in our company, asking for pipes, tobacco, and biscuit, with which I was fortunately able to supply them. Indeed, a day or two before, some of them had communicated with the Asp in a most confident and friendly manner. Had water been found near the best anchorage in Port Albany, it was Captain Stanley's intention to have taken the s.h.i.+p there, but, as it appeared from the various reports, that Evans Bay was preferable at this time for watering, both as affording the largest supply, and the greatest facilities for obtaining it, the s.h.i.+p was accordingly removed to an anchorage off the south part of the bay, and moored, being in the strength of the tide running round Rob.u.mo Island.

Shortly after our arrival at Cape York, the two sets of old wells, dug by the Fly, were cleared out, and we completed water to seventy-five tons.

These wells are situated immediately behind the sandy beach--they are merely pits into which the fresh water, with which the ground had become saturated during the rainy season, oozes through the sand, having undergone a kind of filtration. At times a little surf gets up on the sh.o.r.e, but never, during our stay of three weeks, was it sufficient to interrupt the watering.

COMPLETION OF THE SURVEY.

While the s.h.i.+p remained at Cape York, the Bramble, Asp, pinnace, and our second cutter, were engaged, under their respective officers, in the survey of Endeavour Strait and the Prince of Wales Channel, which they finished before we left, thus completing the survey of the Inner Route between Dunk and b.o.o.by Islands. Previous to leaving for that purpose, the pinnace had been sent to b.o.o.by Island, for letters in the post office there, and some of us had the good fortune to receive communications from our friends in Sydney, which had been left by vessels pa.s.sing through.

Most pa.s.sing vessels heave-to off the island for an hour, the dangers of Torres Strait having been pa.s.sed, and record their names, etc. in the logbook kept there, and by it we found, that with one exception, all this season had taken the Outer Pa.s.sage, and most of them had entered at Raine's Islet, guided by the beacon erected there in 1844, by Captain F.P. Blackwood, of H.M.S. Fly, thus demonstrating the superior merits of this pa.s.sage over the other openings in the Barrier Reef, and the accuracy of the Fly's survey.

On October 21st, the long and anxiously looked-for vessel from Sydney arrived, bringing our supplies, and the letters and news of the last five months. We had for a short time been completely out of bread, peas, and lime juice, and two cases of scurvy had appeared among the crew.

KENNEDY'S EXPEDITION.

It had been arranged that Mr. Kennedy with his expedition should, if possible, be at Cape York in the beginning of October to communicate with us, and receive such supplies and a.s.sistance as might be required; but the month pa.s.sed away without bringing any signs of his being in the neighbourhood. During our progress along the coast a good lookout had been kept for his preconcerted signal--three fires in a line, the central one largest--and bushfires which on two occasions at night a.s.sumed somewhat of that appearance had been answered, as agreed on, by rockets sent up at 8 P.M., none of which however were returned. A schooner from Sydney arrived on the 27th with two additions to his party, including a surgeon, also supplies, consisting chiefly of sheep, with instructions from the Colonial Government to await at Port Albany the arrival of the expedition. The livestock were landed by our boats on Albany Island, where a sheep pen was constructed, and a well dug, but the water was too brackish for use. A sufficient supply however had previously been found in a small cave not far off, where the schooner's boat could easily reach it.

I shall now proceed to give an account of the neighbourhood of Cape York, derived from the present and previous visits, as a place which must eventually become of considerable importance--and first of the aborigines:

NATIVES AT CAPE YORK.

On the day of our arrival at Cape York, a large party of natives crossed over in five canoes under sail from Mount Adolphus Island, and subsequently their numbers increased until at one time no less than 150 men, women, and children, were a.s.sembled at Evans Bay. But their stay was short, probably on account of the difficulty of procuring food for so large an a.s.semblage, and the greater part dispersed along the coast to the southward. While collecting materials for a vocabulary,* I found that several dialects were spoken, but I failed then to connect them with particular tribes or even find out which, if any, were the resident ones.

Among these were two or three of the Papuan race, from some of the islands of Torres Strait. It appeared to me that a constant friendly intercourse exists between the natives of the southern portion of Torres Strait and those of the mainland about Cape York, which last, from its central position, is much frequented during their occasional, perhaps periodical migrations. This free communication between the races would account for the existence in the vocabulary I then procured at Cape York of a considerable number of words (at least 31 out of 248) identical with those given by Jukes in his vocabularies of Darnley Island and Ma.s.seed, especially the latter.

(*Footnote. In ill.u.s.tration of the difficulty of framing so apparently simple a doc.u.ment as a vocabulary, and particularly to show how one must not fall into the too common mistake of putting down as certain every word he gets from a savage, however clearly he may suppose he is understood, I may mention that on going over the different parts of the human body, to get their names by pointing to them, I got at different times and from different individuals--for the s.h.i.+n-bone, words which in the course of time I found to mean respectively, the leg, the s.h.i.+n-bone, the skin, and bone in general.)

The physical characteristics of these Australians seen at Cape York differ in no respect from those of the same race which I have seen elsewhere. The absence of one or more of the upper incisors was not observed here, nor had circ.u.mcision or any similar rite been practised, as is the case in some parts of the continent. Among these undoubted Australians were, as already mentioned, two or three Papuans. They differed in appearance from the others in having the skin of a much lighter colour--yellowish brown instead of nearly black--the hair on the body woolly and growing in scattered tufts, and that of the head also woolly and twisted into long strands like those of a mop. On the right shoulder, and occasionally the left also, they had a large complicated, oval scar, only slightly prominent, and very neatly made.

The custom of smoking, so general throughout Torres Strait, has been introduced at Cape York. Those most addicted to it were the Papuans above-mentioned, but many of the Australians joined them, and were equally clamorous for tobacco. Still it was singular to notice that although choka (tobacco) was in great demand, biscuit, which they had corrupted to bis.h.i.+kar, was much more prized. Their mode of smoking having elsewhere* been described, I need not allude to it further than that the pipe, which is a piece of bamboo as thick as the arm and two or three feet long, is first filled with tobacco-smoke, and then handed round the company seated on the ground in a ring--each takes a long inhalation, and pa.s.ses the pipe to his neighbour, slowly allowing the smoke to exhale. On several occasions at Cape York I have seen a native so affected by a single inhalation, as to be rendered nearly senseless, with the perspiration bursting out at every pore, and require a draught of water to restore him; and, although myself a smoker, yet on the only occasion when I tried this mode of using tobacco, the sensations of nausea and faintness were produced.

(*Footnote. Jukes' Voyage of the Fly Volume 1 page 165.)

These people appeared to repose the most perfect confidence in us--they repeatedly visited the s.h.i.+p in their own canoes or the watering-boats, and were always well treated; nor did any circ.u.mstance occur during our intimacy to give either party cause of complaint. We saw few weapons among them. The islanders had their bows and arrows, and the others their spears and throwing-sticks. As the weather was fine, at least as regarded the absence of rain, no huts of any kind were constructed; at night the natives slept round their fires without any covering. During our stay the food of the natives consisted chiefly of two kinds of fruit, the first (a Wallrothia) like a large yellow plum, mealy and insipid; the second, the produce of a kind of mangrove (Candelia) the vegetating sprouts of which are prepared for food by a process between baking and steaming. At low-water the women usually dispersed in search of sh.e.l.lfish on the mudflats and among the mangroves, and the men occasionally went out to fish, either with the spear, or the hook and line.

THE COUNTRY. ITS PRODUCTIONS.

The country in the immediate vicinity of Evans and Cape York Bays consists of low wooded hills alternating with small valleys and plains of greater extent. The coastline, when not consisting of rocky headlands, is either a sandy beach, or is fringed with mangroves. Behind this, where the country is flat, there is usually a narrow belt of dense brush or jungle. In the valleys, one finds what in the colony of New South Wales would be termed open forest land, characterised by scattered eucalypti and other trees, and a scanty covering of coa.r.s.e sedge-like gra.s.s growing in tufts on a red clayey soil, covered with nodules of ironstone and coa.r.s.e quartzose sand. As characteristics of this poor soil, the first objects to attract the attention are the enormous pinnacled anthills of red clay and sand, often with supporting b.u.t.tresses. These singular structures, which are sometimes twelve feet in height, are of great strength and toughness--on breaking off a piece, they appear to be honeycombed inside, the numerous galleries being then displayed. The ants themselves are of a pale brown colour, a quarter of an inch in length. In sailing along the coast, these anthills may be distinctly seen from the distance of two or three miles.

The rock in the immediate neighbourhood of Cape York is a porphyry with soft felspathic base, containing numerous moderately-sized crystals of amber-coloured quartz, and a few larger ones of flesh-coloured felspar.

It often appears in large tabular ma.s.ses split horizontally and vertically into blocks of all sizes. At times when the vertical fissures predominate and run chiefly in one direction, the porphyry a.s.sumes a slaty character, and large thin ma.s.ses may be detached.

One of the most interesting features in the botany of Cape York, is the occurrence of a palm, not hitherto mentioned as Australian. It is the Caryota urens (found also in India and the Indian archipelago) one of the n.o.blest of the family, combining the foliage of the tree-fern with a trunk a foot in diameter, and sixty in height. It is found in the dense brushes along with three other palms, Seaforthia, Corypha, and Calamus.

Another very striking tree, not found elsewhere by us, is the fine Wormia alata, abundant on the margin of the brushes, where it is very conspicuous from its large yellow blossoms, handsome dark-green foliage, and ragged, papery bark of a red colour.

One day I explored some caves in the sandstone cliffs at Port Albany in quest of bats, and was fortunate enough to get quite a new Rhinolophus or horseshoe bat. In one of the caves, which only admitted of entry on the hands and knees, these bats were so numerous, and in such large cl.u.s.ters, that I secured no less than eleven at one time, by using both hands.

Small kangaroos appeared to be plentiful enough, but we were not so fortunate as to shoot one. The natives one day brought down to us a live opossum, quite tame, and very gentle; this turned out to be new, and has since been described by Mr. Gould under the name of Pseudocheirus nudicaudatus.

In the brushes the sportsman may find the megapodius, brush-turkey, and white pigeon, and in the forest flocks of white c.o.c.katoos, and various parrots and parakeets, besides thrushes, orioles, leatherheads, etc., but I shall not now enter upon the ornithology of the district. A very large lizard (Monitor gouldii) is common at Cape York--it climbs trees with great agility, and is very swift, scampering over the dead leaves in the scrubs, with nearly as much noise as a kangaroo. Snakes, although apparently not very plentiful, yet require to be carefully looked for in order to be avoided; one day I killed single individuals of two kinds--one a slender, very active green whip-snake, four feet in length--the other, the brown snake of New South Wales, where its bite is considered fatal. Fish are plentiful at Cape York; they may be caught with the hook and line from the rocks, or at a little distance off, and the sandy beach of Evans Bay is well-adapted for hauling the seine upon.