Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume ISturt, Charles
History
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume I
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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