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
Tommy Came-first, who was with me, pronounced this to be the work of a
white man; but by the time I had finished a sketch of it The Widow had
hailed him from the woods and told him that it was a grave, after which I
could not prevail on him to approach the spot. I carefully replaced the
bark, anxious that no disturbance of the repose of the dead should
accompany the prints of the white man's feet. I afterwards learnt from
The Widow that the rushes within that solitary tomb were actually the
nightly bed of some near relative or friend of the deceased (probably a
brother) and that the body was thus watched and attended in the grave
through the process of corruption or, as Piper interpreted her account,
until no flesh remains on the bones; "and then he yan (i.e. goes) away!"
No fire, the constant concomitant of places of shelter, had ever been
made within this abode alike of the living and the dead, although remains
of several recent fires appeared on the heath outside.
DEAD TREES AMONG THE REEDS.
In the afternoon we came upon the river where rich weeds and lofty reeds
enveloped a soft luxuriant soil. The yarra, or bluegum, not only grew on
its banks, but spread over the flats; but I remarked that where the reeds
grew thickest most of the trees were dead; and that almost all bore on
their trunks the marks of inundation. These dead trees among reeds
suggest several questions: Were they killed by the frequent burning of
the reeds in summer? If so, how came they to grow first to such a size
among them? Or did excess of moisture or its long continuance kill them?
Are seasons now different from those which must have admitted of the
growth of these trees for half a century? Or have changes in the levels
of the deposits made by the larger rivers below, produced inundations
above, to a greater extent than they had spread formerly?
I was returning with the overseer from examining the country some miles
in advance of the carts, and with the intention of encamping where I had
left them halted, when I found the men had followed my track into some
bad ground. After extricating them from it I proceeded three miles
further to Bidyengoga, which we did not reach until dark. Water was found
in the bed of the Lachlan on our penetrating through a broad margin of
reeds towards some lofty yarra trees. Latitude 34 degrees 12 minutes 17
seconds South; longitude 144 degrees 18 minutes East.
VISIT SOME RISING GROUND.
May 11.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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