Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owe - Volume 1, John MacGillivray [read dune txt] 📗

in good condition, which had been left by Colonel Barney's party.

GLADSTONE SETTLEMENT.

On another occasion Mr. Huxley and myself landed at the site of the settlement of Gladstone, and were picked up in the evening by Captain Stanley in one of the surveying boats, on his return to the ship. It is difficult to conceive a more dreary spot, and yet I saw no more eligible place for a settlement on the shores of the harbour. A few piles of bricks, the sites of the tents, some posts, indicating the remains of a provisional Government-house, wheel-ruts in the hardened clay, the stumps of felled trees, together with a goodly store of empty bottles strewed about everywhere, remained as characteristics of the first stage of Australian colonisation. Within 200 yards of the township we came upon a great expanse of several hundred acres of bare mud, glistening with crystals of salt, bordered on one side by a deep muddy creek, and separated from the shore by thickets of mangroves. The country for several miles around is barren in the extreme, consisting for the most part of undulating, stony, forest land. I have heard, however, that there is much good pastoral country at the back. We found no fresh water during our walk; of two wells which had been dug by the settlers, through stiff clay, one was dry, and the other contained a puddle of brackish water, not fit to drink. We met with few birds, but saw many tracks of emus and kangaroos.

NATIVES SEEN AT A DISTANCE.

During our stay at Port Curtis, we had no intercourse whatever with the natives, although anxious to establish friendly communication. With the aid of the spyglass, we could occasionally make out a few, chiefly women, collecting shellfish on the mudflats of the mainland, and their fires were daily seen in every direction. The employment of firearms against them on several occasions by the crew of the Lord Auckland (under, apparently, justifiable circumstances however) which left the harbour, after repairing her damages, only a few months before our arrival, had probably taught the natives to look with distrust upon white men; and they cautiously avoided our parties.

On Facing Island, our sportsmen found little inland to recompense them for their trouble, except blue mountain parrots and quail; but along the shore, curlews, oystercatchers, and godwits, were plentiful. One day I killed a bustard (Otis australasiana) weighing 22 1/2 pounds; the goodness of its flesh was duly appreciated by my messmates. Several small flocks of this noblest of the Australian gamebirds were seen; but, from their frequenting the open country, and being very wary, it is only by stratagem or accident that they can be approached within gunshot. No land snakes were seen, but sea snakes seem to be frequent in the harbour.

SHARKS AND SHELLS.

Sharks of enormous size appeared to be common; one day we caught two, and while the first taken was hanging under the ship's stern, others made repeated attacks upon it, raising their heads partially out of the water, and tearing off long strips of the flesh before the creature was dead. Another swam off apparently as active as ever, although a musket ball had been fired through its head. On several occasions a party was sent to haul the seine upon a neighbouring mudflat covered at high-water, and generally made good captures, especially of mullet and bream (Chrysophrys); in addition, many other more curious fishes were caught, and several rare and new crustacea-Squilla, Lupea thalamita, and a new genus allied to Gonoplax, which will be found described in the Appendix. Of landshells, only two kinds, a Helix and a Succinea, were found upon Facing Island. Of marine species, 41 were added to the collection; the most important in a non-zoological point of view is a kind of rock oyster of delicious flavour and large size.

LEAVE PORT CURTIS FOR THE NORTHWARD.

November 29th.

Sailed from Port Curtis for the northward, in company with the Asp, the Bramble being sent to Moreton Bay in order to communicate the results of the survey to the Colonial Government, and rejoin us at Cape Upstart. For the next two days light northerly winds prevailed, after which we had the wind from about East-South-East.

PERCY ISLES.

December 3rd.

The Asp having made a signal for assistance, and it being ascertained that she had lost her dinghy and bumpkin by a sea which struck her while crossing a tide-race, it was judged necessary to run for the nearest place where the damage could be repaired. We consequently anchored under Number 2 of the Percy Isles, to leeward of its south-west point, in 10 fathoms, mud, between it and the Pine Islets of the chart.

Here it blew so hard from East-South-East that a second anchor was let go; the yards were pointed to the wind, and the top-gallant masts sent on deck. A party which attempted to land were forced to return, nor was it thought expedient to repeat the attempt on the following day. We remained at this anchorage until the 7th, and found the gale to subside into the south-east trade.

This is the largest of the Percy Isles, being about twelve or fourteen miles in circumference. In structure, it may be said to consist of a series of hills running in ridges, many of them covered with gumtree scrub; and all with long grass growing in tufts, concealing the loose stones, and rendering walking very laborious. On the western side of the island, about a mile from the anchorage, the sea communicates, by a narrow entrance, with a large basin partially blocked up with mangroves, among which a creek filled at high-water, runs up for a mile. At the head of this hollow a deeply worn dried up watercourse indicated the periodical abundance of fresh water; and by tracing it up about a mile further, I found many large pools among the rocks containing a sufficient supply for the ship, but unavailable to us in consequence of the difficulty in getting at it. Signs of natives were frequently met with, but none were recent. From the quantities of turtle-bones about the fireplaces, it is evident that these animals occasionally resort to a small sandy beach near the entrance of the basin above alluded to.

The botany of the island afforded at this unfavourable season not more than five or six species of plants in flower, some of which I had met with elsewhere. A species of pine, Araucaria cunninghami, is found here in small quantities, but more plentifully on the adjacent Pine Islets, where it appears to constitute the only arboreal vegetation. A few cabbage palms, Corypha australis, are the only other trees worth mentioning. Among the birds observed, black and white cockatoos, swamp pheasants, and crows were the most numerous. A fine banded snail, Helix incei, was the only landshell met with. A Littorina and a Nerita occur abundantly on the trunks and stems of the mangroves, and the creek swarmed with stingrays (Trygon) and numbers of a dull green swimming crab.

BUSH FIRE.

During our stay, the bush was thoughtlessly set on fire by some of our people, and continued burning for several days, until nearly the whole island had been passed over; the long dry grass and dead trees blazing very fiercely under the influence of a high wind. At night the sight of the burning scrub was very fine when viewed from a distance, but I did not forget that I had one day been much closer to it than was pleasant-in fact, it was only by first soaking my clothes in a pool among the rocks, emptying the contents of my powder-flask to prevent the risk of being blown up, and then making a desperate rush through a belt of burning scrub, that I succeeded in reaching a place of safety.

Singularly enough, the Asp's dinghy was picked up uninjured on one of the sandy beaches of this island, and on December 7th we left the anchorage with a strong south-easterly wind, and anchored for the night under one of Sir James Smith's group. On the following day we ran through part of Whitsunday Passage, so named by Cook, and anchored in Port Molle, in seven and a half fathoms, a quarter of a mile off shore. The best anchorage here appears to be in the second bay as you round the end of the island, forming the south-east side of the harbour; it may be known by a sandy beach at the head.

During our stay of two days, search was made for water in every likely spot, but none could be found. In the dried up beds of three shallow lagoons (one of which I had seen half filled four years before) we found native wells, one dug to the depth of six feet, but the water had disappeared.

PORT MOLLE.

Port Molle, besides being a well sheltered harbour from all prevailing winds, has a much more pleasing aspect than almost any place I have seen on the north-east coast of Australia. To ourselves the change was agreeable; instead of the monotonous gumtrees and mangroves of Port Curtis and the scantily wooded stony hills of the Percy Isles, we had here many varieties of woodland vegetation, including some large patches of dense brush or jungle, in which one might observe every shade of green from the sombre hue of the pine, to the pale green of the cabbage-palm.

Some rare birds were procured in the brushes-two of them appear here to attain their southern limits of distribution upon the north-east coast of Australia; they are the Australian sunbird (Cinnyris australis) reminding one of the humming birds from its rich metallic colouring, and the Megapodius tumulus, a rasorial bird, the size of a fowl, which constructs great mounds of earth, leaves, sticks, stones, and coral, in which the eggs are deposited at a depth of several feet from the surface, and left there to be hatched by the heat of the fermenting mass of vegetable matter. In addition to these, our sportsmen were successful in procuring numbers of the pheasant-tailed pigeon, and the brush-turkey (Talegalla lathami) the latter much esteemed, from the goodness of its flesh. Many plants and insects as well as several landshells, new to science, which will elsewhere be alluded to, were added to the collection. Doubtless fish are also plentiful here, but we were prevented from hauling the seine by the remains of a wreck in the centre of a flat of muddy sand at the head of the bay where we were anchored; the vessel, I have since heard, had come in contact with a coral reef, and been run on shore here, in order to save a portion of her stores.

CAPE UPSTART. FIND NO WATER.

December 10th.

In company with the Asp we ran up to the northward to Cape Upstart, a distance of about ninety miles, and anchored in five fathoms off the sandy beach inside the point. Two boats were immediately sent to search for water, but we found the pools where the Fly had watered, in 1844, completely empty; and it was not until the deep rocky bed of the torrent had been traced upwards of a mile higher up on the following morning, that fresh water was met with; but at too great a distance from the shore, to be available for our purposes. Judging from the almost total want of water at all the places hitherto visited on this coast since entering the tropics that there was little probability of our finding it at Goold Island, Captain Stanley determined to proceed no further, but return at once to Sydney, by way of Moreton Bay, and letters were left for Lieutenant Yule signifying this intention.

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