Part 14 (2/2)
In this instance we were indebted solely to the good nature and kindness of these children of the wilds for the means of watering our horses: unsolicited they had offered us their aid, without which we never could have accomplished our purpose. Having given the princ.i.p.al native a knife as a reward for the a.s.sistance afforded us, we offered the others a portion of our food, being the only way in which we could shew our grat.i.tude to them; they seemed pleased with this attention, and though they could not value the gift, they appeared to appreciate the motives which induced it.
Having rested for a time, and enjoyed a little tea, we inquired of the natives for gra.s.s for our horses, as there was none to be seen anywhere.
They told us that there was none at all where we were, but they would take us to some further along the coast, where we could also procure water, without difficulty, as the sand was firm and hard, and the water at no great depth. Guided by our new friends, we crossed the sand-hills to the beach, and following round the head of the Great Bight for five miles, we arrived at some more high drifts of white sand; turning in among these, they took us to a flat where some small holes were dug in the sand, which was hard and firm; none of them were two feet deep, and the water was excellent and abundant: the name of the place was Yeer-k.u.mban-kauwe.
Whilst I was employed in digging a large square hole, to enable us to dip the bucket when watering the horses, the native boy went, accompanied by one of the natives as a guide, to look for gra.s.s. Upon his return, he said he had been taken to a small plain about a mile away, behind the sand hills, where there was plenty of gra.s.s, though of a dry character; to this we sent the horses for the night. In returning, a few sea fowl were shot as a present for our friends, with whom we encamped, gratified that we had at last surmounted the difficulty of rounding the Great Bight, and that once more we had a point where gra.s.s and water could be procured, and from which we might again make another push still further to the westward.
In the evening, we made many inquiries of the natives, as to the nature of the country inland, the existence of timber, rocks, water, etc. and though we were far from being able to understand all that they said, or to acquire half the information that they wished to convey to us, we still comprehended them sufficiently to gather many useful and important particulars. In the interior, they a.s.sured us, most positively, there was no water, either fresh or salt, nor anything like a sea or lake of any description.
They did not misunderstand us, nor did we misapprehend them upon this point, for to our repeated inquiries for salt water, they invariably pointed to a salt lake, some distance behind the sand-hills, as the only one they knew of, and which at this time we had not seen.
With respect to hills or timber, they said, that neither existed inland, but that further along the coast to the westward, we should find trees of a larger growth, and among the branches of which lived a large animal, which by their description, I readily recognized as being the Sloth of New South Wales; an animal whose habits exactly agreed with their description, and which I knew to be an inhabitant of a barren country, where the scrub was of a larger growth than ordinary. One of the natives had a belt round his waist, made of the fur of the animal they described, and on inspecting it, the colour and length of the hair bore out my previous impression.
The next water along the coast we were informed, was ten days journey from Yeerk.u.mban kauwe, and was situated among sand-drifts, similar to those we were at, but beyond the termination of the line of cliffs, extending westward from the head of the Bight, and which were distinctly visible from the sh.o.r.e near our camp. These cliffs they called, ”Bundah,” and at two days' journey from their commencement, they told us were procured the specimens of flints (Jula) we had seen upon their weapons, and of which one or two small pieces had been picked up by us among the sand-drifts, having probably been dropped there by the natives.
January 8.--To-day we remained in camp to recruit the horses, and the natives remained with us; soon after breakfast one of them lit a signal fire upon a sand-hill, and not long afterwards we were joined by three more of the tribe, but the women kept out of sight. I now sent the native boy out with one to shoot birds for them, but he came back with only a single crow, and I was obliged to go myself, to try whether I could not succeed better. Being lucky enough to procure four, I gave them to the natives, and returning to the camp we all dined, and afterwards lay down to rest for an hour.
Upon getting up, I missed a knife I had been using, and which had been lying beside me. One of the strange natives who had come to the camp this morning, had been sitting near me, and I at once suspected him to be the thief, but he was now gone, and I had no prospect of recovering the lost article. In the afternoon, the stranger came up to the camp again, and I at once taxed him with the theft; this he vehemently denied, telling me it was lost in the sand, and pretending to look anxiously for it; he appeared, however, restless and uneasy, and soon after taking up his spears went away with two others. My own native boy happened to be coming over the sand-hills at the time, but un.o.bserved by them, and as they crossed the ridge he saw the man I had accused stop to pick something up, and immediately called out to me; upon this I took my gun, and ascending the hill, saw the native throw down the knife, which my own boy then picked up; the other natives had now come up, and seemed very anxious to prevent any hostilities, and to the chief of those who had been so friendly with us, I explained as well as I could the nature of the misunderstanding, and requested him to order the dishonest native away, upon which he spoke to them in his own language, and all took up their spears and went away, except himself and one other. These two men remained with us until dark, but as the evening appeared likely to be wet, they left us also, when we lay down for the night.
January 9.--The morning set in cold, dark and rainy, and as much wet had fallen during the night, we had been thoroughly drenched through, our fire had been extinguished, and it was long before we could get it lit again, and even then we could hardly keep it in; the few bushes among the sand hills were generally small, and being for the most part green as well as wet, it required our utmost efforts to prevent the fire from going out; so far indeed were we from being either cheered or warmed by the few sparks we were able to keep together, that the chill and comfortless aspect of its feeble rays, made us only s.h.i.+ver the more, as the rain fell coldly and heavily upon our already saturated garments.
About noon the weather cleared up a little, and after getting up and watering the horses, we collected a large quant.i.ty of firewood and made waterproof huts for ourselves. The rain, however, was over, and we no longer required them.
Chapter XIV.
PROCEED TO THE WESTWARD--CLIFFS OF THE GREAT BIGHT--LEVEL NATURE OF THE INTERIOR--FLINTS ABOUND--RETURN TO YEER-k.u.mBAN-KAUWE--NATIVES COME TO THE CAMP--THEIR GENEROUS CONDUCT--MEET THE OVERSEER--RETURN TO DEPOT--BAD WATER--MOVE BACK TO FOWLER'S BAY--ARRIVAL OF THE GUTTER HERO--JOINED BY THE KING GEORGE'S SOUND NATIVE--INSTRUCTIONS RELATIVE TO THE HERO--DIFFICULTY OF FIXING UPON ANY FUTURE PLAN--BREAK UP THE EXPEDITION AND DIVIDE THE PARTY--MR. SCOTT EMBARKS--FINAL REPORT--THE HERO SAILS--OVERSEER AND NATIVES REMAIN--EXCURSION TO THE NORTH--A NATIVE JOINS US--SUDDEN ILLNESS IN THE PARTY--FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING THE DEPOT.
January 10.--WE left Yeer-k.u.mban-kauwe early, and proceeding to the westward, pa.s.sed through an open level tract of country, of from three to four hundred feet in elevation, and terminating seawards abruptly, in bold and overhanging cliffs, which had been remarked by Captain Flinders, but which upon our nearer approach, presented nothing very remarkable in appearance, being only the sudden termination of a perfectly level country, with its outer face washed, steep and precipitous, by the unceasing lash of the southern ocean. The upper surface of this country, like that of all we had pa.s.sed through lately, consisted of a calcareous oolitic limestone, below which was a hard concrete substance of sand or of reddish soil, mixed with sh.e.l.ls and pebbles; below this again, the princ.i.p.al portion of the cliff consisted of a very hard and coa.r.s.e grey limestone, and under this a narrow belt of a whitish or cream-coloured substance, lying in horizontal strata; but what this was we could not yet determine, being unable to get down to it any where. The cliffs were frightfully undermined in many places, enormous ma.s.ses lay dissevered from the main land by deep fissures, and appearing to require but a touch to plunge them headlong into the abyss below. Back from the sea, the country was level, tolerably open, and covered with salsolae, or low, p.r.i.c.kly shrubs, with here and there belts of the eucalyptus dumosa. In places two or three miles back from the coast there was a great deal of gra.s.s, that at a better season of the year would have been valuable; now it was dry and sapless. No timber was visible any where, nor the slightest rise of any kind. The whole of this level region, elevated as it was above the sea, was completely coated over with small fresh water spiral sh.e.l.ls, of two different kinds.
After travelling about twenty-five miles along the cliffs, we came all at once to innumerable pieces of beautiful flint, lying on the surface, about two hundred yards inland. This was the place at which the natives had told us they procured the flint; but how it attained so elevated a position, or by what means it became scattered over the surface in such great quant.i.ties in that particular place, could only be a matter of conjecture. There was no change whatever in the character or appearance of the country, or of the cliffs, and the latter were as steep and impracticable as ever.
Five miles beyond the flint district we turned a little inland and halted for the night upon a patch of withered gra.s.s. During the day we had been fortunate enough to find a puddle of water in a hollow of the rock left by yesterday's rain, at which we watered the horses, and then lading out the remainder into our bucket carefully covered it up with a stone slab until our return, as I well knew, if exposed to the sun and wind, there would not be a drop left in a very few hours. Kangaroos had been seen in great numbers during the day, but we had not been able to get a shot at one. Our provisions were now nearly exhausted, and for some days we had been upon very reduced allowances, so that it was not without some degree of chagrin that we saw so many fine animals bounding unscathed around us.
January 11.--Having travelled fifteen miles further along the cliffs, I found them still continue unchanged, with the same level uninteresting country behind. I had now accomplished all that I expected to do on this excursion, by ascertaining the character of the country around the Great Bight; and as our horses were too weak to attempt to push beyond the cliffs to the next water, and as we ourselves were without provisions, I turned homewards, and by making a late and forced march, arrived at the place where we had left the bucket of water, after a day's ride of forty-five miles. Our precaution as we had gone out proved of inestimable value to us now. The bucket of water was full and uninjured, and we were enabled thus to give our horses a gallon and a half each, and allow them to feed upon the withered gra.s.s instead of tying them up to bushes, which we must have done if we had had no water.
January 12.--In our route back to ”Yeer-k.u.mban-kauwe” we were lucky enough to add to our fare a rat and a bandicoot, we might also have had a large brown snake, but neither the boy nor I felt inclined to experimentalise upon so uninviting an article of food; after all it was probably mere prejudice, and the animal might have been as good eating as an eel. We arrived at the water about noon, and the remainder of the day afforded a grateful rest both to ourselves and to the horses.
January 13.--Our fire had gone out during the night, and all our matches being wet, we could not relight it until noon, when the rays of a hot sun had dried them again. Having eaten our slender dinner, I walked out to water the horses, leaving the boy in charge of the camp. Upon my return I found him comfortably seated between two of our friends the natives, who had just returned from a hunting excursion, bringing with them the half roasted carca.s.s of a very fine kangaroo. They had already bestowed upon the boy two very large pieces, and as soon as I made my appearance they were equally liberal to me, getting up the moment I arrived at the camp, and bringing it over to me of their own accord. The supply was a most acceptable one, and we felt very grateful for it. Having received as much of the kangaroo as would fully last for two days, I gave a knife in return to the eldest of the men, with which he seemed highly delighted. I would gladly have given one to the other also, but I had only one left, and could not spare it. The natives remained in camp with us for the night, and seemed a good deal surprised when they saw us re-roasting the kangaroo; frequently intimating to us that it had already been cooked, and evidently pitying the want of taste which prevented us from appreciating their skill in the culinary art.
January 14.--Upon our leaving this morning the natives buried in the sand the remains of their kangaroo, and accompanied us a mile or two on our road, then turning in among the sand-hills they returned to renew their feast. They had been eating almost incessantly ever since they arrived at the water yesterday, and during the night they had repeatedly got up for the same purpose. The appet.i.tes of these people know no restraint when they have the means of gratifying them; they have no idea of temperance or prudence, and are equally regardless of the evil resulting from excess as they are improvident in preparing for the necessities of the morrow--”sufficient (literally so to them) for the day is the evil thereof.”
In our route to-day instead of following round the sea-sh.o.r.e, we struck across behind the sand-hills, from ”Yeerk.u.mban-kauwe” to the water we had first found on the 7th of January, and in doing so we pa.s.sed along a large but shallow salt-water lake, which the natives had pointed to on the evening of the 7th, when I made inquiries relative to the existence of salt water inland. The margin of this lake was soft and boggy, and we were nearly losing one of our horses which sank unexpectedly in the mud.
About noon we arrived at the camp, from which I had sent the man back on the 6th, and having picked up the water and other things left there, proceeded to the sand-hills near which we had halted during the intense heat of that day. We now rested for several hours, and again moved onwards about eleven at night to avoid the great heat of the day whilst crossing the sandy country before us.
January 15.--At sunrise we arrived at the undulating plains, where twenty gallons of water had been left buried for us. Here I found the overseer with two fresh horses, according to the instructions I had sent him on the 6th, by the man who returned. After resting for an hour or two, I set off with the native boy upon the fresh horses, and rode to the water at the sand-drifts, leaving the overseer to bring on the tired animals the next day. It was nearly dark when we arrived at the plain under the sand-hills, and very late before we had watered the horses and brought them back to the gra.s.s.
January 16.--After breakfast, in returning from the water, we had a feast upon some berries, growing on the briary bushes behind the sand-hills; they were similar to those the natives had offered to us, at the head of the Bight, on the 7th, were very abundant, and just becoming ripe. About eight o'clock we set off for the depot, and arrived there at two, glad to reach our temporary home once more, after eighteen days absence, and heartily welcomed by Mr. Scott, who complained bitterly of having been left alone so long. Under the circ.u.mstances of the case, however, it had been quite unavoidable. Upon tasting the water at the well, I found, that from so much having been taken out, it had now become so very brackish, that it was scarcely usable, and I decided upon returning again to Fowler's Bay, where the water was good, as soon as the overseer came back.
January 17.--Spent the day in writing, and in meditating upon my future plans and prospects. I had now been forty-five miles beyond the head of the Great Bight, that point to which I had looked with interest and hope; now, I had ascertained that no improvement took place there, in the appearance or character of the country, but, if any thing, that it became less inviting, and more arid. The account of the natives fully satisfied me that there was no possibility of getting inland, and my own experience told me that I could never hope to take a loaded dray through the dreadful country I had already traversed on horseback. What then was I to do? or how proceed for the future? The following brief abstract of the labours of the party, and the work performed by the horses in the three attempts made to get round the head of the Great Bight, may perhaps seem incredible to those who know nothing of the difficulty of forcing a pa.s.sage through such a country as we were in, and amidst all the disadvantages we were under, from the season of the year and other causes.
<script>