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
July 4.--Our horses having been a good deal fagged yesterday, I did not
disturb them early, and it was nearly noon when we moved away from our
encampment, crossing the main watercourse, of which the ponds we were
upon last night were only a branch. In the larger channel, there were
many fine pools of water, connected by a strongly running stream in a
deep narrow bed, and which wound at a course of E. 25 degrees S. through
a valley of soft, spongy, peaty formation, and over which we had much
trouble in getting our horses, one having sunk very deep, and being with
difficulty extricated. After travelling two miles and a half, we obtained
a view of Bald Island, bearing S. 15 degrees W.; and in two miles and a
half more, we crossed a fine chain of ponds, taking its course through
narrow valleys between hills of granite; these valleys and the slopes of
the hills were heavily timbered; the soil was very rich, either a reddish
loam, or a light black mixed with sand, and the grass interspersed among
the trees was abundant and luxuriant. After ascending the range, we
passed principally over stony hills, and valleys heavily timbered, and
with brush or underwood, filling up the interstices of the trees.
Ten miles from our last night's camp we crossed the tracks of horses,
apparently of no very old date, this being the first symptom we had yet
observed of our approach towards the haunts of civilised man. The day was
cold with heavy squalls of rain, and as the night appeared likely to be
worse, I halted early, after a stage of thirteen miles. After dark the
rain ceased, and the night cleared up, but was very cold.
July 5.--Another rainy day, and so excessively cold that we were obliged
to walk to keep ourselves at all warm; we spent a miserable time,
splashing through the wet underwood, and at fifteen miles we passed a
fresh water lake, in a valley between some hills. This Wylie recognised
as a place he had once been at before, and told me that he now knew the
road well, and would act as guide, upon which I resigned the post of
honour to him, on his promising always to take us to grass and water at
night. Two miles and a half beyond the lake, we came to a fresh water
swamp, and a mile beyond that to another, at which we halted for the
night, with plenty of water, but very little grass. During the day, we
had been travelling generally through a very heavily timbered country.
At night the rain set in again, and continued to fall in torrents at
intervals; we got dreadfully drenched, and suffered greatly from cold and
want of rest, being obliged to stand or walk before the fire, nearly the
whole night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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