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
observed at Muda on the Bogan, again occurred. The native name of the
spot was "Warranb." The soft earth had again impeded the drays; the teams
of two came in at twilight, an axle of one dray having been damaged; the
six others were brought up in the course of the evening. Thermometer at
sunrise, 60 deg.; at 4 P. M., 103 deg.; at 9, 78 deg.;--with wet bulb, 68 deg..
21ST FEBRUARY.--The first thing done this morning was to send back cattle
to draw forward the dray with a bent axle, to the camp, that it might be
repaired. This was done so as to enable the party to continue the journey
by 1 P. M. The barometer was going down at a rate which was alarming
enough, considering what our position must have been there in a flood, or
even after a heavy fall of rain. I therefore pressed forward with the
light carts, and guided by the native. He brought us at 5 P. M. to
"Willery," the place where he had expected to find water; but here again,
he had been anticipated by cattle, which had drunk up all, and trodden
the ponds as dry as a market-place. He gave us no hopes of finding water
that night, nor until we could reach the Barwan, then distant, I was
quite sure, at least twenty-four miles, according to the latitude
observed (30 deg. 19' 54" South). We encamped here, and I sent back
directions that the drays should at once halt, taking their places beside
the leading dray, and that the cattle should be driven back in the
morning to be watered at the last camp (Warranb), and then to return and
follow in my track. Mr. Drysdale, the storekeeper, had also to go back to
serve out a week's rations to the party with the drays, and he returned
to my camp by 2 A. M., in the moonlight, bringing, on the horse of the
former messenger, rations for my party. Here we found the KERAUDRENIA
INTEGRIFOLIA. Thermometer at sunrise, 70 deg.; at noon, 105 deg.; at 9, 83 deg.;--
with wet bulb, 57 deg..
22D FEBRUARY.--My guide was now desirous that I should cross the
Macquarie, to open plains which he represented to be much more favourable
for wheel carriages; but I endeavoured to explain to him, by drawing
lines in the clay surface, how the various rivers beyond would cross and
impede my journey to the Barwan. There were the Castlereagh, Morissett's
Ponds, and the Nammoy.[* If Arrowsmith's map had been correct, which it
was not, for the Nammoy joins the Darling separately, at least fifty
miles higher than the junction of the Castlereagh.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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