Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia Volume II Part 16

The country on its banks in this part presented also the same unvaried desert features that it did in the districts examined by us during the preceding year. The Murray, unlike the Darling, was a permanent river, and I thought it advisable to exhaust no more of my means in the survey of deserts but rather employ them and the time still at my disposal in exploring the sources of that river, according to my instructions and in hopes of discovering a better country. My anxiety about the safety of the depot brought me more speedily to this determination. During the wet and cold weather there might be less activity among the savage natives, but it was not probable that the tribe which had collected 500 men to attack Captain Sturt would be quiet in my rear after having lost some of their number. To be in detached parties amongst a savage population was perilous in proportion to the length of time we continued separate; and I did not feel warranted in exhausting all my means in order to attain, by a circuitous route, the point where my survey ought to have commenced; while a second duty for which the means now left were scarcely adequate remained to be performed. I had already reached a point far above where any boat could be taken, or even any heavy carts; and nothing was to be gained by following the river further.

The natives were heard by Piper several times during the day's journey in the woods beyond the river, as if moving along the right bank in a route parallel with ours; but they did not appear near our camp, although their smoke was seen at a distance.

RAINY MORNING.

June 2.

For several days the barometer had been falling and this morning the weather was rainy and cold.

RETURN OF THE PARTY.

After tracing the further course of the Darling for some distance and obtaining, during an interval of suns.h.i.+ne, a view from a sandhill which commanded a very extensive prospect to the northward, I commenced the retrograde movement along our route, which was but too deeply visible in the sand. From what Piper had said the men expected an engagement during the morning; and it was doubtful, on account of the wetness of the day, whether their pieces would go off if the natives came on; but fortunately we continued our journey unmolested. We reached our former encampment notwithstanding the unfavourable state of the ground, and again pitched our tents upon it. We found among the scrubs this day a new curious species of Baeckea with extremely small scattered leaves not larger than grains of millet, plano-convex and covered with pellucid dots.*

(*Footnote. B. cra.s.sifolia, Lindley ma.n.u.scripts; glaberrima, foliis subrotundis oblongisque obtusis plano-convexis cra.s.sis, floribus solitariis axillaribus pedicellatis cernuis, laciniis calycinis marginatis integerrimis petalis integris brevioribus.)

SURPRISE THE FEMALES OF THE TRIBE.

June 3.

The natives had not again appeared, so that Piper's conjecture that they were moving up the river by the opposite bank with a view to a.s.semble the tribes higher up appeared to be correct. Their gins had been left at their old camp; for as the party crossed a flat not far from it, and I fired at a kangaroo, their voices were immediately heard, signal columns of smoke arose in the air, and they hurried with their children to the opposite side of the Darling. From this astonishment on their part at our appearance, and especially from their flight, knowing well then who we were, it was not improbable that they knew the men were absent on some mischievous scheme affecting us.

JUNCTION OF THE DARLING AND MURRAY.

I struck out of the former line of route for the purpose of extending my measurement to the junction of the rivers, and thus at length found the Darling within a zone of trees which I had formerly taken for the line of the Murray. The banks were high and the channel was also much broader here. After tracing this river about four miles I found that the still but turbid backwater from the larger stream nearly reached the top of the gra.s.sy bank of the other. At length I perceived the Murray before me coming from the south-south-east, a course directly opposed to that in which I had followed the Darling for a mile. Both rivers next turned south-west, then westward, leaving a narrow tongue of land between, and from the point where they both turned westward to their junction at the extremity of this ground between them, I found that the distance was exactly three-quarters of a mile. A bank of sand extended further and, on standing upon this and looking back, I recognised the view given in Captain Sturt's work and the adjacent localities described by him. The state of the rivers was no longer however the same as when this spot was first visited. All the water visible now belonged to the Murray, whose course was rapid, while its turbid flood filled also the channel of the Darling, but was there perfectly still. We were then distant about a hundred miles from the rest of the party who, before we could join them, might have had enough to do with the natives. I thought that in case it might ever be necessary to look for us, this junction was the most likely spot where traces might be sought; and I therefore buried near the point, beside a tree marked with a large M and the word Dig, a phial in which I placed a paper containing a brief statement of the circ.u.mstances under which we had arrived there, and our proposed route to the depot, adding also the names of the men with me. As the ground was soft it was not necessary to dig but merely to drop the phial into a hole made with the scabbard of my sabre; and I hoped that the bottle would escape in consequence the notice of the natives.

EFFECT OF ALTERNATE FLOODS THERE.

The greater width and apparently important character of the Darling near its mouth may perhaps be accounted for by supposing that floods do not always occur in it and the Murray at the same time. The remoteness of the sources of the two rivers and the consequent difference of climate may occasion a flood in the one, while the waters of the other may be very low. That this is likely to happen sometimes may be inferred from the difference between the relative state of the atmosphere on the eastern coast and on the Darling. This difference seems to have been so considerable during the last journey as materially to have affected our barometrical measurements taken simultaneously with observations at Sydney. When the bed of the greater river is also the deepest any flood descending by the other channel when the larger stream is low must flow with greater force into that which is deeper, and in a soft and yielding soil may thus increase the width of its own channel. On the contrary a flood coming down the greater river while the minor channel may happen to be dry must first flow upwards some miles and so fill this channel and, being thus affected both by the rising and subsidence of the greater stream, this process would have had a tendency to deepen and widen the lower part of the Darling.

CHAPTER 3.6.

Return along the bank of the Murray.

Mount Lookout.

Appearance of rain.

Chance of being cut off from the depot by the river floods.

A savage man at home.

Tributaries of the Murray.

A storm in the night.

Traverse the land of lagoons before the floods come down.

Traces of many naked feet along our old track.

Camp of 400 natives.

Narrow escape from the floods of the river.

Piper overtakes two youths fis.h.i.+ng in Lake Benanee.

Description of the lake.

Great rise in the waters of the Murray.

Security of the depot.

Surrounded by inundations.

Cross to it in a bark canoe made by Tommy Came-last.

Search for the junction of the Murrumbidgee and Murray.

Mr. Stapylton reaches the junction of the rivers.

Reception by the natives of the left bank.

Pa.s.sage of the Murray.

Heavy rains set in.

Row up the Murray to the junction of the Murrumbidgee.

Commence the journey upwards, along the left bank.

Strange animal.

Picturesque scenery on the river.

Kangaroos numerous.

Country improves as we ascend the river.

A region of reeds.

The water inaccessible from soft and muddy banks.

Habits of our native guides.

Natives very shy.

Piper speaks to natives on the river.

Good land on the Murray.

Wood and water scarce.

Junction of two branches.

Swan Hill.

RETURN ALONG THE BANK OF THE MURRAY.

Returning from the junction towards our last camp on the Murray we again crossed, when within a mile of that position, the dry channel we had seen on proceeding towards the north-west. It contained some deep lagoons on which were pelicans, but we crossed it where the bed was quite dry and where it presented, like many other parts occasionally under water, striking proofs of the uncertainty of seasons in these parts of Australia. Numerous dead saplings of eight or ten years growth stood there, having evidently flourished in that situation until the water again filled this channel, after so long an interval of drought, and killed them.

On reaching the firm ground beyond we came upon some old graves which had been disturbed, as the bones protruded from the earth. Piper said that the dead were sometimes dug up and eaten; but this I could not believe.

MOUNT LOOKOUT.

By three P.M. we again occupied the remarkable point where we had formerly encamped. It is at this point (Mount Lookout on the map) that the berg of the Murray terminates on the basin of the Darling and thus commands, as before observed, an extensive view over the woody country to the westward. It would be an important position in any kind of warfare, and during my operations I felt as strong upon it with my party as if we had been in a citadel. I had now, I hoped, again got between the junction tribes and our old enemies, though the latter were still between us and our depot; and thus any danger of the junction tribes uniting with those up the Murray was less to be apprehended. Piper however discovered the track of a considerable number who had proceeded up the river the day before. Indeed all the tracks of natives he found led upwards and, seeing no longer any of them there, we felt more anxious about the safety of the depot.

APPEARANCE OF RAIN. CHANCE OF BEING CUT OFF FROM THE DEPOT BY THE RIVER FLOODS.

The barometer had been falling gradually from the 1st instant, and this was another source of anxiety to me; for we were in no small danger of being separated from the other party by any such rise of the river as might be expected after a heavy fall of rain.

June 4.

Notwithstanding the unpromising state of the mercurial column the night had been fair, and in the morning the sky was clear. We lost no time in moving on and we continued until we were four miles beyond our former camp; and then crossing Golgol creek we occupied a clear point of land between it and the Murray.

A SAVAGE MAN AT HOME.

As I was reconnoitring the ground for a camp I observed a native on the opposite bank and, not being seen by him, I watched awhile the habits of a savage man at home. His hands were ready to seize any living thing; his step, light and noiseless as that of a shadow, gave no intimation of his approach; and his walk suggested the idea of the prowling of a beast of prey. Every little track or impression left on the earth by the lower animals caught his keen eye, but the trees overhead chiefly engaged his attention; for deep in the heart of some of the upper branches he probably hoped to find the opossum on which he was to dine. The wind blew cold and keenly through the lofty trees on the river margin, yet that broad brawny savage was entirely naked. Had I been unarmed I had much rather have met a lion than that sinewy biped; but situated as I was, with a broad river flowing between us while I overlooked him from a high bank, I ventured to disturb his meditations with a loud halloo: he stood still, looked at me for about a minute, and then retired with that easy bounding step which may be termed a running walk, and exhibits an unrestrained facility of movement, apparently incompatible with dress of any kind. It is in bounding lighting at such a pace that, with the additional aid of the woomerah, an aboriginal native can throw his spear with sufficient force and dexterity to kill the emu or kangaroo, even when at their speed. One or two families of natives afterwards appeared hutted on the riverbank nearly opposite to our camp, and Piper opened a conversation with them across the river. These people had heard nothing of what had befallen the Benanee tribe. They had some years before seen white men go down and return up the river in a large canoe; and Piper also learnt from them that the Millewa (Murray) had now a flood in it, having for some time previous been much lower than it was then; but they a.s.sured Piper, apparently with exultation, that it flowed always.

TRIBUTARIES OF THE MURRAY.

The name of the creek we had just crossed was Golgol, and it came from the low range of the same name which I had observed on May 29. From what these natives said of Bengallo creek I thought it might be that branch of the Lachlan, already mentioned as Boororan, flowing westward under Warranary and other hills between the Murrumbidgee and the Darling.

A STORM IN THE NIGHT.

June 5.