Volume I Part 27 (1/2)

The accession of a surgeon to our small party relieved me of a greater weight of anxiety than I can describe; and when it is considered that Mr.

Hunter left an employment of a much more lucrative nature to join an arduous service in a vessel whose only cabin was scarcely large enough to contain our mess-table, and which afforded neither comfort nor convenience of any description, I may be allowed here to acknowledge my thanks for the sacrifice he made.

After all our defects were repaired, and we were otherwise quite ready for sea, we were detained nearly a month before our crew was completed.

June 14.

And it was not until the 14th of June that we left Port Jackson.

For a day or two previous to our departure the weather had been very unsettled; and when we sailed, there was every appearance of an approaching gale of wind: we had however been detained so long in collecting a crew that I was glad to sail the moment we were ready: besides I hoped to get to the northward before the threatening storm commenced. Unfortunately however we had no sooner put to sea than it set in; and by the time we were abreast of Smoky Cape the wind, after flying about, fixed itself in the eastern board, and blew extremely hard with thick weather and heavy rain.

June 20 to 22.

The gale lasted with little intermission during the 20th and 21st; and at four o'clock the next morning we had the misfortune to lose our bowsprit by the vessel's plunging into a head sea. We had however made a sufficient offing to enable us to keep away two points, so that, by rigging the wreck of the bowsprit, which was barely long enough to spread the storm jib, we contrived to steer a course we had every reason to think would carry her clear of Port Stevens. We continued to run to the southward until the afternoon, when, supposing we had pa.s.sed that port, we bore away to the South-West. At midnight the gale fell, and the wind changed to the westward.

June 23.

At daylight land was seen to windward, which, from the distance we had ran, was supposed to be about Port Stevens; but we found ourselves at noon by a meridional observation, off Jervis Bay; so that the current during the gale had set us one hundred and fifty miles to the southward, and for the last twenty-four hours at the rate of nearly three knots per hour.

June 24.

Owing to this we did not arrive at Port Jackson until the following day at noon; and it was sunset before the cutter anch.o.r.ed in the cove.

It appeared on our arrival that the weather had been even worse on the land than we had experienced it at sea. The Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers had been flooded, by which the growing crops had been considerably injured, but happily the colony has long ceased to suffer from these once much-dreaded inundations: a great portion of upland country out of the reach of the waters is now cultivated, from which the government stores are princ.i.p.ally supplied with grain. Individuals who, from obstinacy, persist in the cultivation of the low banks of the Hawkesbury, alone suffer from these destructive floods, which have been known to rise in a few hours to the height of eighty feet above the usual level of the river's bed. The evil, however, deposits its own atonement; and the succeeding crop, if it escapes a flood, repays the settlers for their previous loss: this it is that emboldens them to persist in their ill-advised temerity. At no very distant period a time will arrive when these very lands, the cultivation of which has caused so much distress to the colony and ruin to individuals, will, by being laid down in gra.s.s for the purposes of depasturing cattle, become a considerable source of wealth to their possessors.

There has been no general want of grain in the colony since the year 1817, although there have been several floods upon the Hawkesbury and the other rivers that fall into it, which have greatly distressed the farmers of that district. One of the arguments, therefore, with which the enemies of colonizing in New South Wales have hitherto armed themselves, in order to induce emigrants to give the preference to Van Diemen's Land, falls to the ground.

We were fortunate in finding in the naval yard, a spar of the New Zealand cowrie pine (dammara) large enough for our bowsprit.

1820. July 13.

And on the 13th of July, having had our damages repaired, we resumed our voyage under more favourable omens, for we sailed with a fair wind and fine weather.

July 17.

On the 17th July we were off Moreton Bay, and in the afternoon communicated with a whaler which heaved in sight off the Cape (Moreton).

My object was to learn whether she had heard any tidings of a boat belonging to the Echo whaler, which s.h.i.+p had been lately wrecked on the Cato's bank: one of her boats, with part of her crew, arrived at Sydney a few days before we sailed; but another boat, in which the master and the remainder of her people embarked, had not been heard of; and I entertained hopes that this vessel had picked them up, but, on the master's coming on board, I found that he was quite ignorant of her loss.

It so happened that both s.h.i.+ps belonged to the same owner, Messrs.

Bennetts of London; and we had the satisfaction of afterwards hearing that the information we had thus afforded proved useful; for the vessel subsequently succeeded in finding the boat, and preserving the lives of the crew. After giving our visitor some information respecting the coast and the reef off Cape Moreton, which he claimed as his discovery, but which, much to his surprise, we showed him already laid down on Captain Flinders' chart of 1801, he returned to his s.h.i.+p, and we resumed our course to the northward.

July 18.

At nine o'clock the next evening, having pa.s.sed Indian Head in the morning, we rounded Breaksea Spit, and at midnight brought to the wind in order to make Lady Elliot's Island.

July 19.

But, finding at daylight that a current had drifted us past it, we steered on, and at ten o'clock discovered a group of low woody islets.

They were named Bunker's Isles. It has been since ascertained that they abound with turtle and beche de mer, the latter of which, if not both, will at some future time become of considerable importance to the coasting trade of New South Wales.

July 20.