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)
History
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
(*Footnote. P. rodneyanum, Lindley manuscripts; patentim pilosum, caule
subterraneo horizontali crasso fragili ramos erectos promente apice
tantum epigaeos foliosos, ramulis herbaceis erectis, foliis
ovato-oblongis sublobatis basi cuneatis obtusis grosse crenatis tenuibus
glabriusculis longipetiolatis, pedunculis erectis foliis longioribus,
umbellis tomentosis 8-10-floris demum laxis divaricatis, petalis anguste
obovatis calyce triplo longioribus, staminum tubo obliquo: sterilium 3
denticuliformibus, fortilium 2 sterilibus interjectis caeteris
longioribus.)
DIFFERENT HABITS OF THE SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED.
At this camp where we lay shivering for want of fire, the different
habits of the aborigines and us, strangers from the north, were strongly
contrasted. On that freezing night the natives, according to their usual
custom, stripped off all their clothes previous to lying down to sleep in
the open air, their bodies being doubled up around a few burning reeds.
We could not understand how they could lay thus naked when the earth was
white with hoar frost; and they were equally at a loss to know how we
could sleep in our tents without a bit of fire to keep our bodies warm.
For the support of animal heat, fire and smoke are almost as necessary to
them as clothes are to us. The naked savage however is not without some
reason on his side, for fire is the only means he possesses to warm his
body when cold, and it is therefore the only comfort he ever knows;
whereas we require both fire and clothing and have no conception of the
intensity of enjoyment imparted to the naked body of a savage by the
glowing embrace of a cloud of smoke in winter. In summer also he may
enjoy, unrestrained by dress, the luxury of a bath in any pool when not
content with the refreshing breeze that fans his sensitive body during
the intense heat. Amidst all this exposure the skin of the Australian
native remains as smooth and soft as velvet, and it is not improbable
that the obstructions of drapery would constitute the greatest of his
objections in such a climate to the permanent adoption of a civilised
life.
A RANGE VISIBLE IN THE SOUTH.
June 22.
A night of hard frost was succeeded by a beautifully clear morning. The
refraction brought the summits of a distant range above the south-east
horizon; and the sight was so welcome to us, after having found Australia
a mere desert from the want of hills, that I was at a loss for a name to
give these that should sufficiently express my satisfaction. I found the
breadth of the river at our camp to be 50 yards; and the velocity 4
chains (or 88 yards) in 127 seconds, being something less than a mile and
a half per hour; and the height of the bank above the water to be 18
inches.
PECULIARITIES IN THE SURFACE OF THE COUNTRY NEAR THE RIVER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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