Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2Sturt, Charles
History
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2
Sturt, Charles
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Sturt, Charles, 1795-1869
The weather about this time was extremely oppressive and close. Thunder
clouds darkened the sky, but no rain fell. The thermometer was seldom
below 104 at noon, and its range was very trifling. The wind shifted
several times during the twenty-four hours; but these changes had no
effect on the thermometer. It was evident, however, as the sun set on
the evening of the 26th, that the clouds from which thunder had for the
last four or five days disturbed the silence of nature around us, would
not long support their own weight. A little before midnight, it
commenced raining, and both wind and rain continued to increase in
violence until about seven in the morning of the 27th; when the weather
moderated.
Two or three blacks had accompanied us from the last tribe, and had
lain down near the fire. As the storm increased, however, they got up,
and swimming across the river, left us to ourselves. This was a very
unusual thing, nor can I satisfy myself as to their object, unless it
was to get into shelter, for these people though they wander naked over
the country, and are daily in the water, feel the cold and rain very
acutely.
Observing the clouds collecting for so many days, I indulged hopes that
we were near high lands, perhaps mountains; but from the loftiest spots
we could see nothing but a level and dark horizon. Anxious to gain as
correct a knowledge of the country as possible we had, in the course of
the day, ascended a sandy ridge that was about a mile from the river.
The view from the summit of this ridge promised to be more extensive
than any we had of late been enabled to obtain; and as far as actual
observation went, we were not disappointed, although in every other
particular, the landscape was one of the most unpromising description.
To the S. and S.E., the country might be said to stretch away in one
unbroken plain, for it was so generally covered with wood that every
inequality was hidden from our observation. To the S.W. the river line
was marked out by a succession of red cliffs, similar to those we had
already passed. To the north, the interior was evidently depressed; it
was overgrown with a low scrub, and seemed to be barren in the extreme.
The elevations upon which we stood were similar to the sand-hills near
the coast, and had not a blade of grass upon them. Yet, notwithstanding
the sterility of the soil, the large white amarillis which grew in such
profusion on the alluvial plains of the Macquarie, was also abundant
here. But it had lost its dazzling whiteness, and had assumed a sickly
yellow colour and its very appearance indicated that it was not in a
congenial soil.
LINDESAY RIVER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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