Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia: From Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845Leichhardt, Ludwig
History
Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia: From Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845
Leichhardt, Ludwig
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration
A narrow belt of brush covered the approaches to the water; but the
scarlet Eugenia grew on the sandy flats towards the hilly forest; where
we also found a new tree, a species of Anacardium, which the natives
called "Lugula;" it bore a red succulent fruit, formed by the enlargement
of the stalk, with a greyish one-seeded nut outside, like Exocarpus. The
fruit was extremely refreshing; the envelope, however, contained such an
acrid juice that it ate into and discoloured my skin, and raised blisters
wherever it touched it: these blisters were not only followed by a simple
excoriation, but by a deep and painful ulceration. In the forest, we met
with some few small Seaforthia palms, the young shoots of which we
obtained with great difficulty, not then knowing how easily the natives
strip them of the surrounding leaves and leafstalks. I followed a a well
beaten foot-path of the natives to the northward, crossed a creek, in the
mangrove swamp of which another horse was bogged, which we extricated
after great exertion; and, after two or three miles, came to a large
fresh-water swamp (Marair) on which we encamped. The sun had long set,
and our cattle, as well as ourselves, were miserably tired. We were here
visited by a tribe of natives, who were well acquainted with the
settlement; they were all friendly, and willing to assist us; and many of
them spoke very tolerable English. One of them, apparently the chief of
the tribe, though a hunchback, named "Bill White," promised to guide us
to the settlement. He gave us to understand that we had come too far to
the northward, and that we had to go to the south-west, in order to head
Port Essington, and to follow its west coast, in order to arrive at
Victoria. We were, in fact, at Raffles Bay. The natives knew every body
in Victoria, and did not cease to give us all the news; to which we most
willingly listened. They fetched water for us from a great distance, and
gave us some Murnatt, which was extremely welcome. Perceiving the state
of exhaustion and depression in which we were, they tried to cheer us
with their corrobori songs, which they accompanied on the Eboro, a long
tube of bamboo, by means of which they variously modulated their voices.
I may mention that we experienced a heavy thunder-storm during the
afternoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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