Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2: Discoveries in Australia; 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 SeaStokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2: Discoveries in Australia; 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
I here recognised several Australian shrubs and palms. The rock of which
this port of Rottee is formed appeared of a madreporic nature, scattered
about in huge blocks. At a little distance from the water it formed low
broken cliffs from twenty to thirty feet in length; these were everywhere
undermined by the sea, from which the land here was evidently emerging. I
noticed several deserted huts and broken walls or fences, which bore the
appearance of having had much labour bestowed on them at some time or
other. They added much to the lonely appearance of the place, for there
is nothing that imparts so great an air of desolation to a scene as the
signs that it has once been inhabited by man. Tracts which have never
before been trodden by human foot may be gazed on with pleasurable
emotions; but there are always melancholy associations connected with a
spot which our fellow-creatures have once inhabited and abandoned.
The natives we saw belonged to the southern side of Tykale Inlet. They
were occupied in looking after some weirs, from the size and number of
which it would appear that they chiefly live on fish.
JEWELLERS OF PULO DOUW.
The inhabitants of Pulo Douw are a small wandering tribe from Savu,
chiefly jewellers, as the Resident at Coepang informed me. It is a
strange place for them to take up their abode in; perhaps they do not
like the idea of living under a Rajah. They are, I believe, beautiful
workmen; but with them all is not gold that glitters. There are plenty of
coconuts in the island, but little water; the landing at all times is
bad.
When at Coepang we saw some specimens of the gold, collected after heavy
rains from the washings of the hills, and brought down for barter to the
merchants in grains enclosed in small lengths of bamboo, containing each
from six to eighteen drams. Thirty miles south-west of Diely, also, are
some mines of virgin copper.
CHAPTER 2.6.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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