CHAPTER 5.  AT HANOVER BAY.

PLAGUE OF FLIES.

December 4.

To sleep after sunrise was impossible on account of the number of flies which kept buzzing about the face.  To open our mouths was dangerous.  In they flew, and mysteriously disappeared, to be rapidly ejected again in a violent fit of coughing; and into the eyes, when unclosed, they soon found their way and, by inserting the proboscis and sucking, speedily made them sore; neither were the nostrils safe from their attacks, which were made simultaneously on all points, and in multitudes.  This was a very troublesome annoyance, but I afterwards found it to be a very general one throughout all the unoccupied portions of Australia; although in general the further north you go in this continent the more intolerable does the fly nuisance become.

Sunrise offered a very beautiful spectacle; the water was quite unruffled, but the motion communicated by the tides was so great that, although there was not a breath of air stirring, the sea heaved slowly with a grand and majestic motion.  On two sides the view was bounded by lofty cliffs, from three to four hundred feet high, lightly wooded at their summits, and broken by wide openings, into which ran arms of the sea, forming gloomy channels of communication with the interior country; whilst on each side of their entrances the huge cliffs rose, like the pillars of some gigantic portal.

In front of us lay a smooth sandy beach, beyond which rose gradually a high wooded country, and behind us was the sea, studded with numerous islands of every variety of form.

Entrance to Prince regent’s river.

I was too much tired by the fatigues of the night before to enjoy the scene with the full delight I should otherwise have done; the bruises I had received made me feel so stiff and sore that the slightest movement was painful; the rainy season was however now so near that it would not do to lose a single day of preparation.  Directly after breakfast therefore, whilst one boat went off to search for fresh water and a convenient spot to land the stores at, I accompanied the Captain of the vessel in another up Prince Regent’s River.

Effect of tides.

In general the openings to these rivers from the sea are very narrow, forming gorges which terminate in extensive basins, some fifteen or twenty miles inland; the levels of these reservoirs are subject to be raised thirty-seven feet by every tide through their funnel-like entrances, along which the waters consequently pour with a velocity of which it is difficult to form any adequate idea.  By such a tide were we swept along as we entered this river by its southern mouth.

On each side of us rose lofty red sandstone cliffs; sometimes quite precipitous, sometimes, from ancient landslips, shelving gradually down to the water, and at these points covered with a dense tropical vegetation.