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
Sunrise offered a very beautiful spectacle; the water was quite
unruffled, but the motion communicated by the tides was so great that,
although there was not a breath of air stirring, the sea heaved slowly
with a grand and majestic motion. On two sides the view was bounded by
lofty cliffs, from three to four hundred feet high, lightly wooded at
their summits, and broken by wide openings, into which ran arms of the
sea, forming gloomy channels of communication with the interior country;
whilst on each side of their entrances the huge cliffs rose, like the
pillars of some gigantic portal.
In front of us lay a smooth sandy beach, beyond which rose gradually a
high wooded country, and behind us was the sea, studded with numerous
islands of every variety of form.
ENTRANCE TO PRINCE REGENT'S RIVER.
I was too much tired by the fatigues of the night before to enjoy the
scene with the full delight I should otherwise have done; the bruises I
had received made me feel so stiff and sore that the slightest movement
was painful; the rainy season was however now so near that it would not
do to lose a single day of preparation. Directly after breakfast
therefore, whilst one boat went off to search for fresh water and a
convenient spot to land the stores at, I accompanied the Captain of the
vessel in another up Prince Regent's River.
EFFECT OF TIDES.
In general the openings to these rivers from the sea are very narrow,
forming gorges which terminate in extensive basins, some fifteen or
twenty miles inland; the levels of these reservoirs are subject to be
raised thirty-seven feet by every tide through their funnel-like
entrances, along which the waters consequently pour with a velocity of
which it is difficult to form any adequate idea. By such a tide were we
swept along as we entered this river by its southern mouth.
On each side of us rose lofty red sandstone cliffs; sometimes quite
precipitous, sometimes, from ancient landslips, shelving gradually down
to the water, and at these points covered with a dense tropical
vegetation.
GREEN ANTS.
At several such places we landed, but always found the ascent to the
interior so covered with large loose rocks that it would have been
impossible to have disembarked stores or stock on any. The thickness of
the vegetation made it difficult to force a way through, and whenever, in
attempting so to do, a tree was shaken, numbers of a large green sort of
ant fell from the boughs on the unhappy trespasser and, making the best
of their way to the back of his neck, gave warning by a series of most
painful bites that he was encroaching on their domain. Yet it was
sometimes ludicrous to see one of the party momentarily stamping and
roaring with pain, as he cried out to a companion to hasten and assist
him in getting rid of an enemy at once so diminutive and so troublesome.
PARRAKEETS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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