Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 1: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 — John Shaqi
Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 1: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822King, Philip Parker
History
Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 1: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822
King, Philip Parker
Australia -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Australia
The next morning it was calm and sultry; at ten o'clock we anchored near
a small sandy isle in the centre of the bay, until the sea-breeze set in,
which was taken immediate advantage of; and after weighing the course was
directed towards a steep rocky head, forming the South-West point of an
island, subsequently called Enderby Island, after a very old and valued
friend. On our way we had to pass round a sandy islet and a rocky reef of
considerable extent; after which we anchored off a sandy beach to the
eastward of Rocky Head.
Soon after anchoring the sky became black and clouded over the land to
the South-East, and assumed a very threatening appearance; heavy, dense
clouds, in which streams of vivid forked lightning momentarily appeared,
were rolling rapidly towards us, and made us fear a repetition of last
night's storm; the stream-anchor, the only resource we had, was therefore
dropped; and, with the topmast struck, we awaited the bursting of the
storm with much anxiety, and just cause of alarm for the safety of the
vessel: the clouds continued to roll towards us, but just as the storm
was on the point of bursting, the clouds suddenly dispersed and in half
an hour the night turned out as fine as it had threatened to be the
reverse.
February 25.
The next morning I landed with Mr. Roe, and climbed the summit of Rocky
Head before the sun rose; in the ascent we crossed several deep ravines
which, together with the hills, were thickly covered with a wiry grass
(spinifex) growing over and amongst heaps of rocks that were piled up in
all directions as if it had been done purposely; the greater part of the
surface of the island being covered with these stones, we had a
considerable difficulty in advancing, and it was not without some labour
that we arrived at the summit of the hill. Here the view was very
extensive; the coast to the eastward of Cape Preston trends inward and
forms a bay, the shores of which are very low. The land on which we were
appeared to be the south-westernmost island of a considerable
archipelago; and the land to the eastward was observed to be rocky and
high, in comparison to the low sandy country we had been lately passing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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