Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia. Charles Sturt

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СКАЧАТЬ the respective colonies will meet. I was afraid, when I came the second time down the Murray, that I had exaggerated the number of acres in the valley, but on further examination, it appears to me that I did not do so; for as the traveller approaches Lake Victoria the flats are very extensive, but more liable to inundation than those on the higher points of the river, for being so little elevated above the level of the water, especially those covered with reeds, the smallest rise in the stream affects them. Lake Victoria, although it looks like a clear and open sea, as you look from the point of Pomundi, which projects into it to the south, is after all exceedingly shallow, and is rapidly filling up from the decay of seaweed and the deposits brought into it yearly by the floods of the Murray. No doubt but that future generations will see that fine sheet of water confined to a comparatively narrow bed, and pursuing its course through a rich and extensive plain. When such shall be the case, and that the strength of the Murray shall be brought to bear in one point only, it is probable its sea mouth will be navigable, and that the scenery on this river will be enlivened by the white sails of vessels on its ample bosom. I can fancy that nothing would be more beautiful than the prospect of vessels, however small they might be, coming with swelling sails along its reaches. It may, however, be said, that it will be a distant day when such things shall be realized. There is both reason and truth in the remark; but Time, with his silent work, has already raised the flats in the valley of the Murray, and as we are now benefiting by his labours, so it is to be hoped will our posterity. However that may be, for it is a matter only of curious speculation, nothing will stay the progress of improvement in a colony which has received such an impulse as the province of South Australia. As men retain their peculiarities, so, I believe, do communities; and where a desirable object is to be gained, I shall be mistaken if it is lost from a want of spirit in that colony. Purposing, however, to devote a few pages to the more particular notice of the state of South Australia, and the prospects it holds out to those who may desire to seek in other lands more comforts and a better fortune than they could command in their native country, I shall not here make any further observation.

      The morning, which had been so cold, gradually became more genial as the sun rose above us, and both Mr. Eyre and myself forgot that we had so lately been shivering, under the influence of the more agreeable temperature which then prevailed.

      As we turned the Great Bend of the Murray, and pursued an easterly course, we rode along the base of some low hills of tertiary fossil formation, the summits of which form the table land of the interior. We were on an upper flat, and consequently considerably above the level of the water as it then was. In riding along, Tenbury pointed out a line of rubbish and sticks, such as is left to mark the line of any inundation, and he told us, that, when he was a boy, he recollected the floods having risen so high in the valley as to wash the foot of these hills. He stated, that there had been no previous warning; that the weather was beautifully fine, and that no rain had fallen; and he added that the natives were ignorant whence the water came, but that it came from a long way off. According to Tenbury's account, the river must have been fully five and twenty feet higher than it usually rises; and judging from his age, this occurrence might have taken place some twenty years before. As we proceed up the Darling, we shall see a clue to this phenomenon. But why, it may be asked, do not such floods more frequently occur? Is it that the climate is drier than it once was, and that the rains are less frequent? There are vestiges of floods over every part of the continent; but the decay of debris and other rubbish is so slow, that one cannot safely calculate how long it may have been deposited where they are so universally to be found.

      After passing the Great Bend, as I have already stated, we turned to the eastward and overtook Mr. Poole at noon, not more than eight miles distant. Some of the bullocks had strayed, and he had consequently been prevented from starting so early as he would otherwise have done. The animals had, however, been recovered before we reached the party, and were yoked up; we pushed on therefore to a distance of nine miles, cutting across from angle to angle of the river, but ultimately turned into one of the flats and encamped for the night. We passed during the day through some low bushes of cypresses and other stunted shrubs, but they were not so thick as to impede our heavy drays, by the weight of which every tree they came in contact with was brought to the ground. A meridian altitude of Vega placed us in lat. 34 degrees 4 minutes 20 seconds S., by which it appeared that we had made four miles of southing, the Great Bend being in lat. 34 degrees. Kenny and Tampawang had joined the party before we overtook it, and Flood arrived in the course of the afternoon. The cattle had an abundance of feed round our tents, and near a lagoon at the upper end of the flat. The thermometer stood at 40 degrees at 7 p.m., with the wind at west.

      On the morning of the 26th we availed ourselves of the first favourable point to ascend from the river flats to the higher ground, since it prevented our following the windings of the river and shortened our day's journey. In doing this we sometimes travelled at a considerable distance from the Murray--the surface of the country was undulating and sandy, with clumps of stunted cypress trees, and eucalyptus dumosa scattered over it. Low bushes of rhagodia, at great distances apart, were growing on the more open ground; the soil, consisting of a red clay and sand, only superficially covering the fossil formation beneath it. At 11 a.m. we entered a dense brush of cypress and eucalypti growing in pure sand. Fortunately for us the overlanders had cut a passage through it, so that we had a clear road before us, but the drays sunk deep into the loose sand in which these trees were growing, and the bullocks had a constant strain on the yoke for six miles. We then broke into more open ground, and ultimately reached the river in sufficient time to arrange the camp before sunset, although we had 2½ miles to travel on a S.W. course before we found a convenient place to stop at. Our course during the day having been S.S.E., we had thus been obliged to turn back upon it, but this was owing to the direction the river here takes and was unavoidable. At 6 p.m. the thermometer stood at 55 degrees of Farenheit, the barometer at 30.000, and the boiling point of water by two thermometers with a difference of 2 degrees 212 minutes and 214 minutes, respectively, our distance from the sea coast being about 120 {180 in published text} miles as the crow flies.

      It was generally thought in Adelaide that having started so late in the season, I should experience some difficulty in getting feed for the cattle. From my experience, however, of the seasons in the low region through which the Murray flows, I had no such anticipation. The only fear I had, was, that we should be shut out from flats of the river by the floods, as I knew it would be on the rise at the time we should be upon it. To this point, however (and I may add, with few exceptions), we found an abundance of feed, both along the line of the Murray and the Darling, but at our present encampment our animals fared very indifferently, in consequence of the poor nature of the soil. Our tents were pitched at the northern extremity of a long flat, between the river and a serpentine lagoon, which left but a narrow embankment between itself and the stream. The soil of the flat was a cold white clay, on which there was scarcely any vegetation, so that the cattle wandered and kept us about an hour after our appointed hour of starting. There had been a sharp frost during the night, and the morning was bitterly cold. At sunrise the thermometer stood at 29 degrees, the dew point being 43 degrees, and the barometer at 29.700.

      When we left this place, our course, for the first three miles, was along the embankment separating the river from the lagoon, and I remarked that although there was so little vegetation on the ground, there were some magnificent trees on the bank of the river itself, which gradually came up to the north-east. At three miles, however, our further course along the flats was checked by the hills of fossil formation, which approached the river so closely as to leave no passage for the drays between it and them. We were, therefore, obliged to ascend to the upper levels, in doing so we were also obliged to put two teams, or sixteen bullocks, to each dray, and even then found it difficult to master the ascent.

      Referring back to a previous remark, I would observe that the Murray river is characterised by bold and perpendicular cliffs of different shades of yellow colour, varying from a light hue to a deep ochre. These cliffs rise abruptly from the water to the height of 250 and occasionally 300 feet. They occur first on one side of the river, and then on the other, there being an open or a lightly-timbered flat on the opposite side, with a line of trees almost invariably round it, especially along the river. These flats are backed, at uncertain СКАЧАТЬ