Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 1Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 1
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
Although it had rained during the night and the sun this morning rose
bright and clear the country was still impassable owing to the late
continued torrents. I therefore went out with a detachment for the
purpose of exploring a route by which we could proceed the next day, as
well as to define some more points in the country we were about to enter.
In the course of our walk we crossed the track of the natives we had
heard yesterday. Their party must have been large, for they approached to
within about three hundred yards of the tents, leaving a trail as broad
and large as was made by our ponies and party together. I did not much
like their hanging about us for so many days as I rather mistrusted their
intentions; their object however appeared to have been to examine the
ponies, for they had only come as far as the tethering ground and, after
wandering about there a little, had again retired. We were unfortunate in
our search for a good line of country by which to proceed, but I made
some important additions to my map.
MARSH AND SANDSTONE RANGE.
March 22.
As fine weather had apparently set in again we this morning resumed our
journey. The poor ponies looked very weak and wretched when they were
brought up to start, and we were all ragged, dirty, and worn out from the
constant exposure to wind and rain; indeed our appearance was altogether
very miserable on moving off, and our progress, too, very slow and
fatiguing, both to ourselves and the horses, on account of the swampy
nature of the ground; but we strenuously persevered until near noon, when
I halted for breakfast at the foot of some lofty hills, at the base of
which ran the stream which was giving us so much trouble. As soon as we
had despatched our scanty breakfast I tried with a party to find a
passage across the marsh, but our search was in vain and, on examining
the sandstone range on the other side of the stream, I found it so
precipitous that our weak ponies could not possibly have clambered up it.
NATIVE BRIDGE.
Whilst on our return we found a native bridge, formed of a fallen tree,
which rested against two others and was secured in its position by forked
boughs.
PRECIPITOUS PASS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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