Explorations in Australia: The Journals of John McDouall Stuart During the Years 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, and 1862, When He Fixed the Centre of the Continent and Successfully Crossed It from Sea to SeaStuart, John McDouall
History
Explorations in Australia: The Journals of John McDouall Stuart During the Years 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, and 1862, When He Fixed the Centre of the Continent and Successfully Crossed It from Sea to Sea
Stuart, John McDouall
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Stuart, John McDouall, 1815-1866
over to-day is of the very finest description, rich black alluvial soil,
completely matted with grass, the water most excellent and abundant. The
timber, gum and melaleuca, a few of the trees resembling the shea-oak
also; a few of the fan palms growing among the springs, very tall,
upwards of forty feet; the cabbage palm, and a number of other bushes.
The general course to-day has been about east-south-east. Wind variable.
Thursday, 14th August, Springs and Chains of Ponds South of the Roper.
Started at half-past seven, intending to follow a south-east course to
make the Mussel Camp on the 23rd of June; but, meeting with another large
creek with continuous water, deep, broad, and boggy, also a number of
springs and water creeks, so boggy that I could not cross them, had to
twist and turn about very frequently, and sometimes to go quite back
again, before I could clear them--which brought me often close to the
river again. About eleven o'clock, as I was approaching the east end of a
low rocky range of hills, where I expected to get rid of all the boggy
ground, I was again stopped by a broad, deep, and boggy sheet of water. A
few minutes before coming to it, I was seized with a violent pain under
the right shoulder-blade, which deprived me of breath and power of
utterance: it darted through my body like lightning, causing the most
excruciating pain that I have ever felt during my life. I had to halt the
party, and was lifted from the saddle completely powerless. After
dismounting, the pain became so violent, and the torture so excessive,
that I thought my career in the world was coming quickly to a close. I
was completely paralysed, and a cold perspiration was pouring in streams
over my face and body. Recollecting I had got a mixture of laudanum and
other strong aromatic tinctures, had it sought for and took a strong
dose. After suffering an hour the extremes of torture, I began to feel
the good effects of the medicine, and obtained a little relief from the
pain ceasing for a few seconds; but still very bad. In a short time
afterwards I was able to bear being lifted into the saddle; again my
sufferings commenced, for every false step the horse made sent the pain
through my body like a knife, and almost brought me to the ground. Being
determined to reach the Mussel Camp to-night, and get quit of the Roper
River, which has been so unfortunate to me in drowning two of my best
horses, I kept my saddle until I reached it--which was not till near five
o'clock. Such a day of torture I never experienced before. On reaching
our tracks, about four miles from the Mussel Camp, another of the horses
knocked up, and we could not get him a step further. I expected to have
lost him long before this; he is one of those that failed on my last
journey, and was sent back from Mount Margaret. Light winds from east.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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