The Australian Explorers: Their Labours, Perils, and Achievements: Being a Narrative of Discovery from the Landing of Captain Cook to the Centennial Year — John Shaqi
The Australian Explorers: Their Labours, Perils, and Achievements: Being a Narrative of Discovery from the Landing of Captain Cook to the Centennial YearGrimm, George
History
The Australian Explorers: Their Labours, Perils, and Achievements: Being a Narrative of Discovery from the Landing of Captain Cook to the Centennial Year
Grimm, George
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers -- Australia
the swiftness of an arrow, and in another moment shot forth impetuously
into the broad reach of the finest river in Australia. "It is impossible
for me," says Sturt, "to describe the effect of so instantaneous a
change of circumstances upon us. The boats were allowed to drift along
at pleasure, and such was the force with which we had been shot out of
the Murrumbidgee that we were carried nearly to the bank opposite its
embouchure whilst we continued to gaze in silent astonishment on the
capacious channel we had entered, and when we looked for that by which
we had been led into it we could hardly believe that the insignificant
gap that presented itself to us was indeed the termination of the
beautiful stream whose course we had thus successfully followed. I can
only compare the relief we experienced to that which the seaman feels on
weathering the rock upon which he expected that his vessel would have
struck, to the calm which succeeds moments of feverish anxiety, when the
dread of danger is succeeded by the certainty of escape." This was
indeed a noble river. Its width was 350 feet, its depth not less than
12, and its current was running at the rate of two and a half knots an
hour. The discoverers believed they had now obtained ample reward for
all their toils and trials. This was the same river which had been
discovered and crossed by Hume and Hovell where the town of Albury now
stands, but between that point, where it had been first seen by
civilized man, and the part now visited by Sturt, it had received so
many tributaries as to make it a much larger and, in a sense, another
river. Sturt called it the Murray, after the Imperial Colonial
Secretary, but the original discoverer had named its upper course the
Hume in memory of his father. For a time these names were confined to
the respective parts of the river; and Dr. Lang censured Count
Strzelecki for departing from this usage in his published work. General
practice has now deserted the Doctor and followed the Count.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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