Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone), 1792-1855
The men carried no spears and looked diminutive and simple; most of them
had had the smallpox, but the marks were not larger than pin heads. I
found they had either seen or heard of Captain Sturt's party for,
pointing to the sun, they showed me that six revolutions of that source
of heat had elapsed since the visit of others like us. Other gestures,
such as a reference to covering, and expressions of countenance, made
their indications of the lapse of time plain enough. It seemed to me that
the disease which it was understood had raged among them (probably from
the bad water) had almost depopulated the Darling, and that these people
were but the remains of a tribe. The females were numerous in proportion
to the males, and they were not at all secluded by the men, as in places
where the numerical proportions were different. All these natives (with
the exception of the boy) had lost the right front tooth. They had a very
singular mode of expressing surprise, making a curious short whistle by
joining the tongue and lips. The gins were hideous notwithstanding they
were rouged with red ochre, by way, no doubt, of setting off their
charms. I gave to one man a piece of my sword blade, and to another a
tomahawk, which he carefully wrapped in the paper in which I had kept it,
and he seemed much pleased with his present. They pointed to the west as
the general course of the river.
RESULTS OF THE JOURNEY.
The results of our journey thus far were, first, the survey of the Bogan,
nearly from its sources to its junction with the Darling. This I
considered no trifling addition to Australian geography; for the
knowledge of the actual course of a long river, however diminutive the
channel, may often determine to a great extent the character of the
country through which it passes. In the present instance it may be
remarked that, had Captain Sturt considered the course of this river when
he named the lower part of it New Year's Creek, the idea that the plains
which he saw to the southward of New Year's range formed the "channel of
a broad and rapid river" never could have occurred to him; for the basin
of the Bogan being bounded on the west by a succession of low hills, no
other river could have been reasonably looked for in such a direction.
Again, the connection of that chain of low hills with the higher lands of
the colony, being thus indicated by the course of the Bogan, it is not
probable that this traveller, had he been aware of the fact, would have
described New Year's range, which is about the last of these hills, as
"the FIRST elevation in the interior of Eastern Australia, to the
westward of Mount Harris." On the contrary, the divergent lines of the
Bogan and the Lachlan might rather have been supposed to include a hilly
country which, increasing in height in proportion as its breadth thus
became greater, would naturally form that high ground so likely to
separate the Upper Darling from the valley of the Murray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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