Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
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Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2: 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
As soon as daylight appeared this morning we commenced our long journey
through the scrub; and we discovered to our surprise, by the traces of
innumerable feet along our track, that the natives had not, as I till
then supposed, come along the riverbank, but had actually followed us
through that scrub. They have nevertheless a great dislike to such parts,
not only because they cannot find any game there, but because the prickly
spinifex-looking grass is intolerable against their naked legs. While we
were encamped in the scrub on May 25 they must have also passed that
stormy night there, without either fire or water. On our way through it
now we discovered a new hoary species of Trichinium, very different from
Brown's Tr. incanum.* The cattle, though they were jaded, accomplished
the journey before sunset, and we halted beside the large lagoon adjacent
to that part of the river which was within three miles of our former
camp, being the spot where the natives, in following us from lake
Benanee, first emerged from the woods. The weather being still
boisterous, we occupied a piece of low ground where we were sheltered
from the west or stormy quarter by the river berg.
(*Footnote. Tr. lanatum, Lindley manuscripts; incano-tomentosum, caule
corymboso, foliis obovatis cuneatisque, capitulis hemisphericis lanatis,
bracteis dorso villosis.)
CAMP OF 400 NATIVES.
On the brow of this height and just behind our camp I counted the remains
of one hundred and thirty-five fires at an old encampment of natives and,
as one fire is seldom lighted for less than three persons, there must
have been at least four hundred. The bushes placed around each fire
seemed to have been intended for that temporary kind of shelter required
for only one night.
June 9.
We proceeded this morning as silently as possible, for we were now
approaching the haunts of the enemy, and I wished to come upon them by
surprise, thinking that I might thereby sooner ascertain whether any
misfortune had befallen the depot.
NARROW ESCAPE FROM THE FLOODS OF THE RIVER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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