Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Queensland -- Discovery and exploration
10TH JULY.--Returning, still along our old track, towards a slight
eminence, three miles from our camp, I there set the party to work, to
cut a way across the gully, which had first obliged me to turn westward.
While the men were so employed, I rode about five miles northward, but
met with no opening or water-course admitting of a passage in that
direction. On the contrary, I returned, on intercepting one running S. E.
towards our river. The party had taken all things across when I rejoined
them, and we travelled along the left bank of the gully, chiefly through
open forest land, until we approached the river. Scrub, and muddy
gullies, obliged us to cross the river soon after we reached its banks.
Water appeared more abundant in its bed here, and we encamped on the
border of a small plain, hemmed in by brigalow scrub, in latitude 24 deg. 33'
25" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 23 deg.; at noon, 58 deg.; at 4 P.M., 62 deg.; at 9,
29 deg.. Height (XLVII.) above the sea, 1192 feet.
11TH JULY.--We travelled along the right bank of the river, through a
fine open forest, until our route, in a N. E. by N. direction, was again
impeded by the river. We had now descended from the upper sources of this
river, at least 1000 feet according to the barometer. We had seen, in a
large pond, a fish called mullet, which abounds in the rivers falling to
the eastern coast, but which I had never seen in those falling westward.
It was also obvious that there was no coast range between us and the
coast, and consequently that a very decided break, at least, occurred in
it, about the latitude of 25 deg. S. This was more apparent to me on crossing
the river, and sending Yuranigh up a tree, about three miles beyond. He
could see no mountains to the northward or north-east, but only the high
table land already seen to the eastward, in which direction he could
trace the course of the river. I hastened back to the party, directed
them to encamp, and proceeded with two men and Yuranigh in a N. W.
direction, carrying provisions for a long ride. We plunged into the sea
of Brigalow--
"----And we did buffet it, With lusty sinews throwing it aside, And
stemming it with JACKETS ALL IN TATTERS."
After working out our way thus, for about ten miles, our toils were
rewarded with a scene of surpassing beauty, that gradually opened to us.
That long-lost tree, the graceful Acacia pendula, received us in the
foreground, and open plains, blended with waving lines of wood, extended
far into bluey distance, beyond which an azure coronet of mountains of
romantic forms, terminated the charming landscape.
"Far in the west, the long, long vale withdrawn,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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