Volume Ii Part 11 (1/2)
August 8.
At daylight we were afoot and breakfasted, and started immediately after.
We travelled up the hills all day, but made very little progress, owing to the great labour of clearing, and the numerous steep ascents we met with. We fortunately found water in a low place, and with difficulty lighted a fire, everything being saturated with rain. We then laid down and endeavoured to sleep, but were unable to do so from the number of small leeches which attacked us. I was obliged to get up several times in the night, and in the morning I found myself covered with blood.
August 9.
We started at daylight, although it was raining, and continued to do so all day; about six o'clock in the evening we reached a small river, running rapidly over rocks, and deep in some places. Its course was north-easterly, but it turned north, a little below where we first came upon it. We camped by the side of it, it being too late to cross, although there was open forest ground on the other side. The open ground on the coast side of the range was considerably lower than that on the other, the highest part of our track being, according to Mr. Kennedy's barometrical observations, upwards of two thousand feet above the level of the sea. The soil was a strong loam of a dark colour, owing to the admixture of a great deal of decomposed vegetable matter; rock projected in many places, and in those parts where the rocks were near the surface, Callitris (cypress pine) grew. In the deeper soil were large trees of the genera Castanospermum, Lophostemon, and Cedrela, mingled with Achras australis, Calamus (climbing palm), Seaforthia, d.i.c.ksonia, Osmunda, large shrubs of Alyxia; several very interesting Orchideae were also found in this place. We also discovered a great many snails, with very large sh.e.l.ls of a greyish colour. One I found on the bushes with an operculum--this I gave to Wall.
August 10.
This morning we took the sheep and horses to a spot in the river where the current was not so strong, and drove them across. The sheep followed the horses like dogs. We then cut down three small straight trees, and made a bridge across a deep channel which ran between two rocks which projected out of the water, across which we carried our stores on our backs. All the things were got over before dark, after which we made a large fire to dry ourselves, having been wet to the waist all day.
Niblett, who had been very unwell for three or four days, was taken much worse to-day. The position of our camp here was about 17 degrees 48 minutes South lat.i.tude, 145 degrees 20 minutes East longitude. We this day crossed the range, and prepared to commence our journey on the other side.
August 11.
We remained this day at the camp to give the horses a rest after their harra.s.sing journey over the range.
August 12.
Proceeding about five miles over uneven open forest ground, with isolated blocks of rock, we camped by a chain of rocky waterholes. The trees growing here were casuarina, box, apple-gum, and ironbark.
August 13.
Sunday. Prayers as usual at eleven o'clock.
August 14.
Complaint was made to Mr. Kennedy of the waste and extravagant use of the flour and sugar by Niblett, who had the charge of the stores. Mr. Kennedy immediately proceeded to examine the remainder of the stores, when he found that Niblett had been making false returns of the stores issued weekly. Up to this time Mr. Kennedy, Niblett, and Douglas (who waited on Mr. Kennedy) had messed together, apart from the other ten. Niblett took charge of the ration for the smaller mess, and usually cooked it himself, the ration being taken out weekly from that weighed for the whole party.
Besides issuing a larger ration to his own mess, Niblett had taken a great deal from the stores for himself.
On finding this out, Mr. Kennedy requested me to take charge of the stores, and issue them to the cook for the week, and from this date we all messed together. We had at this time about seven hundred pounds flour left. Everything was weighed in the presence of the whole party before I took charge, and I always weighed out every week's ration in the presence of the cook and two other parties. At this camp it was found necessary to reduce our ration to the following scale per week; fifty pounds flour, twelve pounds sugar, two and three-quarter pounds tea, and the sheep as before--one every second day. After the ration was cooked, it was divided by the cook at every meal. We this day burned our sheepfold to lighten our loads a little.
August 15.
We were cutting through scrub nearly all day, and crossed several small creeks running westward. This day the horse carrying my specimens had become so poor and weak that he fell five different times, and we were obliged to relieve him of his load, which was now placed on one of Mr.
Kennedy's horses; but we soon found that even without a load he could not travel. We took off his saddle, bridle, and tether rope, and left him behind on a spot of good gra.s.s, where plenty of water was to be found.
The country here had a rugged and broken appearance; huge blocks of rock were lying on the open ground, sometimes one irregularly placed on the top of another, and of curious shapes. The hills as well as the valleys were generally covered with good gra.s.s, excepting in the scrub. On some of the hills the rocks were s.h.i.+vered into irregular pieces, and displayed crystals of quartz, small laminae of mica, and occasionally hornblende.
This evening we camped by the side of a fine casuarina creek, coming from the north-east. Immediately over our camp its waters ran over a very hard trap-rock of a black colour, the soil a stiff loam.
August 16.
We travelled on for the most part of this day over irregular, barren, stony ridges, and gullies, intersected by numerous small creeks, and abounding in rocky holes, all containing plenty of water.
Two more of our horses fell several times this day; one of them being very old, and so weak that we were obliged to lift him up. We now made up our minds for the first time, to make our horses, when too weak to travel, available for food; we therefore killed him, and took meat enough from his carca.s.s to serve our party for two days, and by this means we saved a sheep. We boiled the heart, liver, and a piece of the meat to serve us for our breakfast next day. We camped in the evening in the midst of rocky, broken hills, covered with dwarf shrubs and stunted gumtrees; the soil in which they grew appearing more sandy than what we had yet pa.s.sed on this side of the range. The shrubs here were Dodonaea, Fabricia, Daviesia, Jacksonia, and two or three dwarf species of acacia, one of which was very showy, about three feet high, with very small oblong, sericeous phyllodia, and globular heads of bright yellow flowers, produced in great abundance on axillary fascicles; also a very fine leguminous shrub, bearing the habit and appearance of Callistachys, with fine terminal spikes of purple decandrous flowers, with two small bracteae on the foot-stalk of each flower, and with stipulate, oval, lanceolate leaves, tomentose beneath, legumes small and flattened, three to six-seeded, with an arillus as large as the seed; these were flowering from four to twelve feet high. There was plenty of gra.s.s in the valleys of the creeks. To the South-West on the hills the gra.s.ses were Restio, Xerotes, and a spiny gra.s.s, which neither the horses nor the sheep would eat.
August 17.
This morning we commenced to prepare our breakfast of horse-flesh. I confess we did not feel much appet.i.te for the repast, and some would not eat it at all; but our scruples soon gave way beneath the pangs of hunger, and at supper every man of the party ate heartily of it, and afterwards each one claimed his share of the mess with great avidity. The country to the north and north-west--the course we intended to pursue--looking very rugged and broken, we were discouraged from proceeding further this day, as the weak state of our horses prevented us making almost any progress. We therefore camped by the side of a small rocky creek, winding through the mountains in all directions.