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
We might have gone nine or ten miles when the wind suddenly increased,
and ere we had made five more it had become a perfect gale and we were
obliged to keep the boats close hauled, for had we run ever so little
before the wind we should not have fetched Bernier Island, and
consequently should have been blown right out to sea. We had nothing
therefore now to do but to struggle for it, and to use every energy to
save ourselves. Sea after sea broke into the boat but the water was as
rapidly baled out: none could have behaved better than the crews of both
boats did, and the whole scene was one of such constant, cheerful, and
successful exertion that, great as our danger was, I do not recollect
ever having a keener perception of the pleasure of excited feelings, or a
more thorough revelry of joyous emotions, than I had during this perilous
passage.
REACH BERNIER ISLAND.
Bernier Island at last rose in sight and amidst the giant waves we
occasionally caught a peep of its rocky shores; but we were so tossed to
and fro that it was only now and then that from the summit of some
lofty sea we could sight a high shore which was not more than four or
five miles from us. We had made the island about five miles from its
northern extremity, and I ran along the shore until I found a convenient
landing-place about a mile and a half to the south of our old one.
CHANGE IN THE LAND.
It was perfectly sheltered by reefs and an island, but it surprised me
that I had not remarked this cove on my previous visit to the island, and
I was still further astonished to see now three new small rocky islands,
of which I had no recollection whatever. Indeed the men all for a long
time stoutly denied that this was Bernier Island and, had we not now
sighted Kok's Island, I should have doubted my skill in navigation and
made up my mind that I had fallen into some strange error; but as it was
forebodings shot across my wind as to what pranks the hurricane might
have been playing upon the island, which consisted of nothing but loose
sand heaped upon a bed of limestone rock of very unequal elevation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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