FLINDERS’ WELL.

The Investigator’s old well was discovered half a mile eastward of the point, to which I gave the name of Point Inscription, from a very interesting discovery we made of the name of Flinders’ ship cut on a tree near the well, and still perfectly legible, although nearly forty years old, as the reader will perceive from the woodcut annexed.  On the opposite side of the trunk the Beagle’s name and the date of our visit were cut.

It was thus our good fortune to find at last some traces of the Investigator’s voyage, which at once invested the place with all the charms of association, and gave it an interest in our eyes that words can ill express.  All the adventures and sufferings of the intrepid Flinders vividly recurred to our memory; his discoveries on the shores of this great continent, his imprisonment on his way home, and cruel treatment by the French Governor of Mauritius, called forth renewed sympathies.  I forthwith determined accordingly that the first river we discovered in the Gulf should be named the Flinders, as the tribute to his memory which it was best becoming in his humble follower to bestow, and that which would most successfully serve the purpose of recording his services on this side of the continent.  Monuments may crumble, but a name endures as long as the world.

Being desirous of ascertaining if now, in the dry season, water could be obtained in other parts of the island, I ordered a well to be dug on the extreme of Point Inscription, a more convenient spot for watering a ship, and at a depth of 25 feet met excellent water, pouring through a rock of concreted sand, pebbles, and shells.

Our success may be attributed, as Flinders says, to the clayey consistence of the stratum immediately under the sand, and to the gravelly rock upon which that stratum rests; the one preventing the evaporation of the rains, and the other obstructing their further infiltration.

INVESTIGATOR ROAD.

This was a very important discovery, as Investigator Road is the only anchorage for vessels of all sizes at the head of the Gulf in either monsoon, and possesses an equal supply of wood, fish, and birds, with turtle close at hand on Bountiful Islands.  Moreover, should an expedition be formed for the purpose of exploring the interior from the head of the Gulf, it is, as Flinders remarks, “particularly well adapted for a ship during the absence of the travellers.”  In addition to this, it is a point at which an expedition would first arrive to arrange plans for the future; and lastly, I should observe that in case of our being fortunate enough to find rivers or fertile country on the southern shores of the Gulf, we at once saw that we might look forward to the time when Investigator Road* should be the port from which all the produce of the neighbouring parts of the continent must be shipped, and when it should bear on its shores the habitations of civilized man, and the heavenward pointing spires of the Christian Church.  The feeling that we might be the means of bringing about this happy state of things by discovering a country habitable by Europeans, greatly added to the zest with which we prosecuted our subsequent researches.