Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — CompleteSturt, Charles
History
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete
Sturt, Charles
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Sturt, Charles, 1795-1869
The men were obliged to put handkerchiefs over their faces, and stockings
upon their hands; but they bit through every thing. It was to no purpose
that I myself shifted from place to place; they still followed, or were
equally numerous everywhere. To add to our discomfort, the animals were
driven almost to madness, and galloped to and fro in so furious a manner
that I was apprehensive some of them would have been lost. I never
experienced such a day of torment; and only when the sun set, did these
little creatures cease from their attacks.
SUDDENLY RELIEVED.
It will be supposed that we did not stay to subject ourselves to another
trial; indeed it was with some degree of horror that the men saw the first
light of morning streak the horizon. They got up immediately, and we moved
down the creek, on a northerly course, without breakfasting as usual. We
found that dense brushes of casuarina lined the creek on both sides,
beyond which, to our left, there was open rising ground, on which
eucalypti, cypresses, and the acacia longifolia, prevailed; whilst to the
east, plains seemed to predominate.
Although we had left the immediate spot at which the kangaroo flies
(cabarus) seemed to be collected, I did not expect that we should have got
rid of them so completely as we did. None of them were seen during the
day; a proof that they were entirely local. They were about half the size
of a common house fly, had flat brown bodies, and their bite, although
sharp and piercing, left no irritation after it.
About noon we stopped at the creek side to take some refreshment. The
country bore an improved appearance around us, and the cattle found
abundance of pasture. It was evident that the creek had been numerously
frequented by the natives, although no recent traces of them could be
found. It had a bed of coarse red granite, of the fragments of which the
natives had constructed a weir for the purpose of taking fish. The
appearance of this rock in so isolated a situation, is worthy of the
consideration of geologists.
DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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