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 02Eyre, 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 02
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
A jagged peak, which I named Mount Ragged, bore W. 10 degrees N., and a
round topped one W. 30 degrees N. We were now actually beyond those
hills; but the level bank, under which we had been travelling, prevented
our seeing more of them than the bare outline of their lofty summits. The
whole of the intervening country, between the level bank and the hills,
consisted of heavy sandy ridges, a good deal covered with scrub; but we
now found more grass than we had seen during the whole journey before. In
the night I was taken ill again, with violent pains, accompanied by cold
clammy sweats; and as the air was cold and raw, and a heavy dew falling,
I suffered a great deal.
May 17.--This morning I felt rather better, but very weak, and wishing to
give the horses an opportunity of drinking, which they would not do very
early on a cold morning, I did not break up the camp until late. Upon
laying down last night Wylie had left the meat on the ground at some
distance from our fire, instead of putting it up on a bush as I had
directed him, the consequence was that a wild dog had stolen about
fourteen pounds of it whilst we slept, and we were now again reduced to a
very limited allowance.
After travelling about five miles we found a great and important change
in the basis rock of the country; it was now a coarse imperfect kind of
grey granite, and in many places the low-water line was occupied by
immense sheets of it. Other symptoms of improvement also gradually
developed themselves. Mountain ducks were now, for the first time, seen
upon the shore, and the trunk of a very large tree was found washed up on
the beach: it was the only one we had met with during the whole course of
our journey to the westward, and I hailed it with a pleasure which was
only equalled by finding, not far beyond, a few drops of water trickling
down a huge graniterock abutting on the sea-shore. This was the only
approximation to running water which we had found since leaving Streaky
Bay, and though it hardly deserved that name, yet it imparted to me as
much hope, and almost as much satisfaction, as if I had found a river.
Continuing our course around a small bay for about five miles, we turned
into some sand-drifts behind a rocky point of the coast, from which the
islands we had seen yesterday bore E. 47 degrees S., Cape Pasley, S. W.,
Point Malcolm, S. 33 degrees W., and Mount Ragged W. 32 degrees N.
Several reefs and breakers were also seen at no great distance from the
shore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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