Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 01Eyre, Edward John
History
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 01
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
March 11.--Early this morning we moved on, leading slowly our jaded
animals through the scrub. The night had been one of painful suspense and
gloomy forebodings; and the day set in dark and cloudy, as if to
tantalise us with the hope of rain which was not destined to fall. In a
few miles we reached the edge of the cliffs, from which we had a good
view of the sandy valley we had been travelling round, but which the
thick scrub had prevented our scrutinising sooner. I now noticed some
hillocks of bare sand in the midst of it. These I had not seen before, as
the only previous point from which they could have been visible had been
passed by us in the dark. It now struck me, that the water spoken of by
the natives at Yeerkumban-kauwe might be situated among these sand-hills,
and that we were going away from instead of approaching it. The bare idea
of such a possibility was almost maddening, and as the dreadful thought
flashed across my mind I stood for a moment undecided and irresolute as
to what I ought to do. We were now many miles past these hills, and if we
went back to examine them for water, and did not find it, we could never
hope that our horses would be able to return again to search elsewhere;
whilst if there was water there, and we did not return, every step we
took would but carry us further from it, and lead to our certain
destruction.
For a few minutes I carefully scanned the line of coast before me. In the
distance beyond a projecting point of the cliffs, I fancied I discerned a
low sandy shore, and my mind was made up at once, to advance in the line
we were pursuing. After a little while, we again came to a well beaten
native pathway, and following this along the summit of the cliffs, were
brought by it, in seven miles, to the point where they receded from the
sea-shore; as they inclined inland, leaving a low sandy country between
them and some high bare sand-hills near the sea. The road now led us down
a very rocky steep part of the cliffs, near the angle where they broke
away from the beach, but upon reaching the bottom we lost it altogether
on the sandy shore; following along by the water's edge, we felt cooled
and refreshed by the sea air, and in one mile and a half from where we
had descended the cliffs, we reached the white sand-drifts. Upon turning
into these to search for water, we were fortunate enough to strike the
very place where the natives had dug little wells; and thus on the fifth
day of our sufferings, we were again blessed with abundance of
water,--nor could I help considering it as a special instance of the
goodness of Providence, that we had passed the sandy valley in the dark,
and had thereby been deterred from descending to examine the sand-hills
it contained; had we done so, the extra fatigue to our horses and the
great length of time it would have taken up, would probably have
prevented the horses from ever reaching the water we were now at. It took
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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