Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.Stokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.
Stokes, John Lort
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Natural history -- Australia
In a valley to the left of the slope by which we ascended the peak, were
noticed several very remarkable, low and spreading trees, with a dark
green foliage, and leaves large, ovate, and obtuse. The branches, from
which, when broken, a milky juice exuded, were thick and glossy, of an
ash colour; at their extremity they were thin, with long pendulous stems,
supporting a bell-shaped flower, of a rich crimson hue; these hung in
great profusion, and contrasting with the surrounding dark green verdure,
presented a very beautiful and striking appearance. The diameter of the
trunk of the largest tree was 20 inches, and the height 25 feet.
Lieutenant Emery painted a most faithful representation of one of them,
by means of which we found on our arrival at Port Essington, that neither
the professional nor amateur botanists, had any knowledge of it. To them
and to ourselves it was alike perfectly new.
CAPTAIN COOK.
On the preceding evening I had refreshed my memory by reading Cook's
account of his visit to the same spot, and was thus able minutely to
follow in the footsteps of the immortal navigator. There is an
inexpressible charm in thus treading in the track of the mighty dead, and
my feelings on attaining the summit of the peak, where the foot of the
white man, had perhaps but once before rested, will easily be understood.
Below to the eastward stretched a vast expanse of water, broken at the
distance of about eight miles, by a long narrow line of detached reefs,
on which there ran a white crest of foaming breakers, marking the outer
edge of the Great Barrier, a name which few seamen could hear with
indifference when in its vicinity. If I felt emotions of delight, on
first perceiving the extent of a danger so justly dreaded, how much
stronger must have been the feelings of Captain Cook, when from the same
spot years before, he saw by a gap in the line of broken water, there was
a chance of his once more gaining the open sea, after being confined to
the eastern shores of the Australian continent, for a distance of 750
miles.
Though the dangers of this inner channel had proved so nearly fatal to
his ship, the truth of the homely adage, which describes all as happening
for the best, was here fully borne out, as the very fact of his position
enabled Captain Cook to make considerable discoveries along the
coast--just as by the mishap on Endeavour Reef, the presence of a river
was made apparent, and some slight knowledge of the aborigines obtained,
as well as numerous facts illustrative of the natural and vegetable
productions of the locality.
PROVIDENCE CHANNEL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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