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
Once more in a state of forward movement we crossed green hills and
running brooks until, when we had travelled nearly six miles from Muddy
Camp and had crossed six fine streams or burns, we met with a more
formidable impediment in the seventh. The sides of this ravine were so
uncommonly steep that our new difficulty was how to move the vehicles
down to the bank of the stream. In one place where a narrow point of
ground projected across, a passage seemed just possible; and after we had
made it better with spades we attempted to take a light cart over. The
acclivity was still however rather too much, and over went the cart,
carrying the shaft bullock with it, and depositing all my instruments
etc. under it in the bed of the stream. With travellers on roads this
might have been thought a serious accident, but in our case we were
prepared for joltings, and nothing was in the least degree injured;
neither was the animal hurt, and we ascertained by the experiment,
dangerous though it was, that still more was necessary to be done for the
passage of the heavy carts and boats which were still some way behind;
and I encamped on the bank beyond that the men might set about this work.
No time was lost in filling up the hollow with all the dead trees that
lay about and what others we could cut for the purpose; and thus before
sunset the three carts and one waggon were got across. The rocks in the
bed of this stream consisted of grey gneiss, and on the hills beyond it I
found nodules of highly ferruginous sandstone.
ENTER THE VALLEY OF NANGEELA.
August 10.
By means of a block and tackle attached to a large tree the remaining
carts and the boat-carriage were safely lowered to the bed of the stream.
To draw them up the opposite bank was practicable only by uniting the
strength of several teams, yet this too was effected successfully and the
whole party were enabled to go forward in the morning. At a mile and a
half from the camp a scene was displayed to our view which gladdened
every heart. An open grassy country extending as far as we could
see--hills round and smooth as a carpet, meadows broad, and either green
as an emerald or of a rich golden colour from the abundance, as we soon
afterwards found, of a little ranunculus-like flower. Down into that
delightful vale our vehicles trundled over a gentle slope, the earth
being covered with a thick matted turf, apparently superior to anything
of the kind previously seen. That extensive valley was enlivened by a
winding stream, the waters of which glittered through trees fringing each
bank.
NATIVE FEMALE AND CHILD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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