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
After having discovered this cave I returned to the party and, directing
them to prepare for moving on, I ordered that as soon as all was ready
they should proceed past the cave, so that all would have an opportunity
of examining it, and in the meantime I returned in order to make sketches
of the principal paintings. The party soon arrived and, when my sketches
and notes were completed, we retraced a portion of our route of this
morning, moving round the sandstone ridge through one portion of which I
saw a sort of pass which I thought might perhaps afford us a means of
egress. I therefore halted the party and moved up with Corporal Auger to
examine it. After proceeding some distance we found a cave larger than
the one seen this morning; of its actual size however I have no idea, for
being pressed for time I did not attempt to explore it, having merely
ascertained that it contained no paintings.
INTAGLIO CUT IN A ROCK.
I was moving on when we observed the profile of a human face and head cut
out in a sandstone rock which fronted the cave; this rock was so hard
that to have removed such a large portion of it with no better tool than
a knife and hatchet made of stone, such as the Australian natives
generally possess, would have been a work of very great labour. The head
was two feet in length, and sixteen inches in breadth in the broadest
part; the depth of the profile increased gradually from the edges where
it was nothing, to the centre where it was an inch and a half; the ear
was rather badly placed, but otherwise the whole of the work was good,
and far superior to what a savage race could be supposed capable of
executing. The only proof of antiquity that it bore about it was that all
the edges of the cutting were rounded and perfectly smooth, much more so
than they could have been from any other cause than long exposure to
atmospheric influences.
ROUTE CONTINUED. HIGH GRASS.
After having made a sketch of this head (see the accompanying plate) I
returned to the party and, as I had not been able to find a path which
would lead us across the sandstone ridge, we continued our course round
it, retracing our steps until we reached the stream which had been
crossed this morning, and then moved westward, keeping along its southern
bank until we had turned the sandstone range and reached another stream
running from the south, which we traced up in the direction of its
source, travelling through a series of basaltic valleys of so luxuriant a
character that those of the party who were not very tall travelled, as
they themselves expressed it, between two high green walls, over which
they could not see; and these green walls were composed of rich grass
which the ponies ate with avidity. On a subsequent occasion when we
visited this valley we had to call to one another in order to ascertain
our relative positions when only a few yards apart; and yet the
vegetation was neither rank nor coarse, but as fine a grass as I have
ever seen.
REFLECTIONS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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