Volume I Part 36 (1/2)

March 8.

As soon as we had sufficient light for the purpose I proceeded to examine the stores. The flour was not very good at starting; it had been packed in small bags, that being the most convenient form to have it in both for stowing and transporting it on men's shoulders; and in the hurricane which we had experienced on Dorre Island this flour had got thoroughly soaked: from that period to the present time it had been constantly wet with salt water; last night's adventures completed its disasters and it was now quite spoilt and an unwholesome article of food; but having nothing else to eat we were forced to satisfy ourselves with it, and I directed it to be dried in the sun and then carefully repacked. The wind was from the south-south-west, about half a gale, and there was such a tremendous surf on the sh.o.r.e that to launch the boats was impossible. I therefore started to look for water and to explore the country.

SEARCH FOR WATER.

The point we had landed at was immediately at the base of some bare sandhills, about four hundred feet high. These are the hills which are visible from the high land of Dorre Island on the opposite side of the bay: it struck me that from their great height and their porous nature there was a probability of our finding water by digging, even in this apparently sandy desert; I therefore selected a spot at the foot of the highest hill, in the bare sand, and ordered a well to be opened. Our efforts were crowned with success; the well had not been sunk more than four or five feet when we came to a coa.r.s.e gravelly sand, saturated with water, which was perfectly sweet and good; and when the well was sunk about two or three feet deeper the water poured in so fast that there would have been no difficulty in watering a s.h.i.+p at this point.

APPEARANCE OF A LAKE. EXAMINATION OF IT.

Whilst the men were engaged in filling the water kegs I ascended the highest sandhill, the summit of which was not distant more than a mile from the well. When I gained this a most splendid sight burst upon my view: to the westward stretched the boundless sea, lashed by the wind into white and curling waves; whilst to the east of me lay a clear calm unruffled lake, studded with little islands. To the north or north-east I could, even with a good telescope, see no limits to this lake, and, with the exception of the numerous beautiful islands with which it was studded, I could, even from the commanding position which I occupied, distinguish nothing like rising land anywhere between north by east and south-east. The lake had a gla.s.sy and fairy-like appearance, and I sat down alone on the lofty eminence to contemplate this great water which the eye of European now for the first time rested on. I looked seaward, and it appeared as if nature had heaped up the narrow and lofty sandy barrier on which I stood to shut out from the eyes of man the lovely and fairy-like land which lay beyond it.

At length I rose and returned to the party. The news of my discovery filled all with hope; and, our miserable breakfast having been hurriedly despatched, I selected three men to accompany me in my first examination of the sh.o.r.es of this inland sea. When we had gained the top of the sandhills the surprise of these men was as great as my own, and they begged me to allow them to return and endeavour by the united efforts of the party to carry one of the whale-boats over the intervening range, and at once to launch it on this body of water.

I however deemed it more prudent in the first instance to select the best route along which to move the whale-boat, as well as to choose a spot which afforded facilities for launching it. In pursuance of this determination we descended the eastern side of the sandhills which abruptly fell in that direction with a slope certainly not much exceeding an angle of 45 degrees. I now found that the water did not approach so near the foot of the hills as I had imagined, but that immediately at their base lay extensive plains of mud and sand, at times evidently flooded by the sea; for on them lay dead sh.e.l.ls of many kinds and sizes, as well as large travelled blocks of coral. The water here appeared to be about a mile distant; it was also apparently boundless in an east and north-east direction: and was studded with islands.

REMARKABLE PLAINS. DELUSION FROM MIRAGE.

We still all felt convinced that it was water we saw, for the shadows of the low hills near it, as well as those of the trees upon them, could be distinctly traced on the unruffled surface. As we continued to advance, the water however constantly retreated before us and at last surrounded us. I now found that we had been deceived by mirage; the apparent islands being really such only when these plains are covered by the sea. In many places the sandy mud was so moist that we sank deeply into it, and after travelling for fifteen miles on a north-east course I could still see no limit to these plains in that direction, nor could I either then or on any subsequent occasion find the channel which connected them with the sea. The only mode of accounting for their being flooded is to suppose that the sea at times pours in over the low land which lies to the north of the Gascoyne, and flows northward through channels which will be seen in the chart of this part of the country; but I then believed, and still consider, that there is hereabouts a communication with some large internal water.

We saw no tracks of natives and only a few of emus and native dogs. The few portions of rising ground which lay near the edge of these extensive plains were sandy, scrubby, and unpromising; but what we saw was so little that no opinion of the country could fairly be deduced from it. We dug in several places on the flats and in their vicinity but all the water we could find was salt; whereas in the narrow range of sandhills separating them from the sea we had discovered abundance of fresh water only four or five feet below the surface of the valleys lying between these hills. As this range of more than thirty miles in length offered many geological phenomena I called it Lyell's Range in compliment to the distinguished geologist of that name; the plains themselves I named the Plains of Kolaina (Deceit).

INDISPOSITION OF SEVERAL OF THE PARTY. SICKNESS FROM DELAY AND DISAPPOINTMENT.

On my return to the boats I found that Mr. Smith was still unwell; several other men were also complaining; I myself was wearied from exertion and disappointment that my great discovery had dwindled away: the place where we were was infested by land-crabs who kept running over us continually, and the sand which drifted before the wind got into the pores of the skin, and kept most of us in a constant state of painful irritation. The night was therefore not a pleasant one.

March 9.

Throughout the night the winds had howled loudly and the surf broke hoa.r.s.ely upon the sh.o.r.e. The grey dawn of morning brought no comfort with it: far out to seaward nothing but broken water could be seen, and half a gale of wind blew from the south by east. The bad and insufficient food I had been compelled to eat had brought on violent sickness and other evil effects, and I found myself very ill. As the daylight advanced report after report came to me that some one of the party had been attacked by the same diseases experienced by Mr. Smith and myself.

EXAMINATION OF THE Sh.o.r.e TO THE NORTHWARD, AND OF THE COUNTRY TO THE SOUTH-EAST.

I was only well enough to write and survey a little, but I sent off a party to a point which lay about six miles to the north of us, and they on their return reported that there was a continuation of a similar sh.o.r.e for the next fourteen or fifteen miles, bordered in like manner by sandy muddy plains similar to those behind the hills where we were.

This party found one of the yellow and black water-snakes asleep upon a piece of dry seaweed on the beach and killed it. The fact of this animal being found on sh.o.r.e proves its amphibious character. I saw them in one instance, in December 1837, so far out at sea as to be distant 150 miles from land.

Sunday March 10.

I spent a wretched night from illness and foul weather; the roaring of the surf on the sh.o.r.e was so loud and incessant that to one feverish and in want of quiet and rest it was a positive distress, and both Mr. Smith, myself, and half the men were at this time seriously indisposed. We had strong gales of wind all day from south by east, but in the afternoon I walked out for five miles in an east-south-east direction with such of the men as were able to move; nothing however could be seen but a continuation of the same barren, treeless country; we observed no signs of natives except tracks in the mud of a single man who had pa.s.sed some months ago.

It annoyed me now to find that the silvering of the gla.s.ses of my large s.e.xtant was so much injured from the constant wettings it had experienced that this day it was almost useless. I had hoped in the course of our walk to have fallen in with some game, but we did not see a single bird with the exception of some small ones, about the size of tomt.i.ts, which flew from bush to bush along the sandhills.

SUFFERINGS FROM HEAT AND PRIVATION.

We had a small quant.i.ty of portable soup with us, nearly all of which we used, and it in some degree restored us, but another miserable night was pa.s.sed by us all and in the morning I was grieved to see how ill many of the men looked. Their situation was really deplorable and I had with me neither medicines nor proper food to give them. Abundance of these lay at our depot not more than forty miles from us, yet to reach it was impossible; and dawn this morning had only revealed to us a heavier surf and stronger gale from the southward than we had yet experienced. None of the men were well enough to undergo the fatigue of another day's walking, so I busied myself with making observations and taking bearings, and thus the forenoon wore away. The point of the coast on which we were lay in 24 degrees 30 minutes south lat.i.tude, and the mean temperature up to this period had been:

6 A.M. 76.

12 M. 83.

3 P.M. 87.

6 P.M. 78 degrees.