Volume II Part 31 (2/2)

View of Interior

Birds

Solitary Island

Visit the Shore

Amphinome Shoals

Bedout Island

Breaker Inlet

Exmouth Gulf

Arrive at Swan River

PORT ESSINGTON

The period of our arrival at Port Essington had been looked forward to by all with deep interest, and, I may say, some anxiety Two years had elapsed since our last visit, and various and contradictory were the reports in circulation respecting the welfare of the settlely truly rejoiced to find it in a state of prosperity that will ever reflect the highest credit on the hardy feho have laboured so earnestly for its welfare It was an e countries, it is possible to recover from any disaster, that the trees which had been uprooted, shattered, and riven in fragments by the hurricane of 1839, were for the e of the year; there was scarcely anything left to commemorate that dreadful visitation, but the tombs of twelve brave fellows, of the Pelorus, who lost their lives at the time

There was a care-worn, jaundiced appearance about the settlers, that plainly revealed how little suited was the climate for Europeans to labour in; and yet there had been, I was told, no positive sickness The hospital, however, had been enlarged, and rendered a very substantial building Captain Macarthur had built a strong and well-contrived blockhouse, of the excellent kind of wood, a species of teak, before alluded to A new garden also had been laid out, in which the banana and pine, besidesThe arrow-root and sugar-cane grown here are allowed by those who have seen these plants in the West Indies not to be surpassed in excellence; and the cotton froland at sixpence-halfpenny a pound The colonists were beginning to understand the seasons; they had taken out of the ground sweet potatoes nearly sufficient to last them until the next crop This was the first time they had been tried I have never seen any in South America half the size In short, Ithe state in which was that at Raffles Bay when it was abandoned

Considering the few days given to sporting, our gaaroos, twenty quails, ten ducks, seven pigeons, two pheasants, and two ibises

The natives in the neighbourhood of Port Essington are, like all others on the continent, very superstitious; they fancy that a large kind of tree, called the I the Adansonia, contains evil spirits Here, also, as I have elsewhere observed, they fancy that after death they reappear as whites; the bones of the dead are frequently carried from place to place

The reader will reator, whoton I witnessed in his family an instance of affection for a departed child, which, though it exhibited itself in this peculiarThe wife had treasured up the bones of the little one, and constantly carried them about with her, not as a memento mori, but as an object whereon to expend her tenderest emotions, whenever they swelled within her breast

At such tiether these bones with a rapidity that supposed a wonderful knowledge of osteology, and set theination, as she perforhastly framework before her becaht eyes once more sparkled in those hollow cells, and a sht but the hideous grin of death I exceedingly regret that the mother who could feel so finely was some time afterwards over-persuaded to part with the bones of her child

I may here mention that the medical officer of the settle teeth for the natives, who found the Europeanthe this fact, was anxious to become a purchaser of teeth to so persuaded that they would find a ready sale a the dentists; and it is more than probable that many of our fair ladies at home are indebted for the pearls on which the poets exhaust so much of their fancy to the rude natives of Australia

Aton respecting the Macassar people, who periodically visit the coast, was that of their discovering a strait leading into the Gulf of Carpentaria, behind English Co Turu, or Bearaway Point, they continue their course down the Gulf to the Wellesley Islands, naa, or The Three Islands; this is the usual southern lie The Macassar proas that visit Port Essington, aht for barter tea, sugar, cloths, salt-fish, rice, etc Several of the nakodhas, or , and occupy thee our stay a report was brought into the settlee vessel wrecked on the ator Rivers, which was accompanied by so many details of place and circumstance that Captain Stanley was induced to send Lieutenant Vallack, of the Britomart, away in the decked tender to procure information, and to render all assistance in his power He was accoton natives; and on arriving at the Eastern River, found that there was no foundation for the report But having got so far away from the settlement, he ascended the river some little distance, and towards sunset cans were made to induce them to approach, for soed by seeing so eous ventured to draw near

The scene that folloas a curious illustration of the slight communication that exists between natives of different tribes, and also of the great difference in their language, as the strangers could hold no conversation with the people froton, hen they found their own dialect was not understood, tried to explain thelish as were then used at the colony, and seee mess of boiled rice, which had been prepared by way of a feast for the newcomers, was then produced; but it was not before they saw their country it that they could be induced to eat, as they evidently did not knohat it was The result of Lieutenant Vallack's visit is hostile to the idea entertained that clothes given to natives at Port Essington pass into the interior, which I always much doubted Had the fence before alluded to by me been run across the neck, and an out-station formed there, we should have had further acquaintance with the natives of the es that would necessarily have accrued

As it seeain perton, we naturally experienced soret on our departure, and were led to speculate, with interest, on its future destiny A young settlement, so remote and solitary, cannot fail to awaken the liveliest syer How small soever may be the circle of its present influence, the experience of the past teaches us confidently to expect that wherever a knot of Englisherton, a sphere of action, of great extent and ih, to a careless observer, unskilled in discerning the undeveloped capabilities of geographical positions, it ht simply of an isolated military post And, certainly, whateverhas, as yet, been done to ascertain them We are still reduced to base our opinions on conjecture and hypothesis; we know nothing of the aht be carried on with the islands of the Indian Archipelago--nothing of the productions of the ht be carried in the neighbourhood Without data of this kind it is impossible, with any pretensions to accuracy, to estimate the probable future iton, the value of which does not depend on the fertility of Cobourg Peninsula, any more than that of Gibraltar on the productiveness of the land within the Spanish lines Victoria, if we regard its own intrinsic worth, ht be blotted out of the list of our possessions without any material detriment to our interests; but its importance, as a commercial station, is incalculable It is, indeed, to the country behind--at present unvisited, unexplored, a conita--and to the islands within a radius of five hundred miles, that we must look if ould forton to the Crown At present it may seem idle, to some, to introduce these distant places as elements in the discussion of such a question; but no one who reflects on the power of trade to knit together even more distant points of the earth, will think it visionary to suppose that Victoria nificant as hbourhood--be the centre of a vast system of commerce, the ee of the products of the Indian Archipelago for those of the vast plains of Australia It ination, certainly, to discover the precursor of such a state of things in the miserable traffic now carried on by the Macassar proas; but still, I think, we possess some data on which to found such an opinion, and I aton will ultimately hold the proud position I predict for it

As steam coapore and our colonies on the south-eastern shores of Australia,

this port, the only really good one on the north coast, will be of vast ieland)

As I have already observed, however, little pains have been taken to ascertain all the capabilities of the place, and to extend our acquaintance with the country behind No European has ever yet penetrated any great distance beyond the neck that connects Cobourg Peninsula with the mainland; and even the report of the existence of the settlement has scarcely travelled farther At least in 1841, when Lieutenant Vallack visited one of the Alligator rivers he found the natives conorant that we had established ourselves in their neighbourhood

Froiven a brief abstract above, it appears that there is soh such is decidedly not the case near the settlement

(Footnote This officer has since forwardedVictoria he proceeded to the south-west side of the Peninsula, and followed the shore to the neck, when taking an east direction he crossed it, and then pursuing a northerly course made his way to Middle Head, on the side of the harbour opposite the settlement

The frequent opportunities Lieutenant Stewart had of deters of the islands, leave no doubt as to the correctness of his route)

The reports of late sent in respecting the climate have, in some measure, been unfavourable; and, as I have observed, the appearance of the garrison was rather sickly; but may not this arise partly from the indifferent es, in a temperature much too warender disease There is, besides, a rove swamp immediately behind the settleard to the range of the therrees, and it is never so high, by ten or twenty degrees, as I have seen it in South Australia during the hot winds: the average, however, is about 83 degrees The fact that the site of Victoria lies so far from the entrance of the harbour is injurious to its prosperity, as it prevents , and deprives it of the breezes that constantly prevail on the coast, and would of course conduce to its healthiness