Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier eBook

John Pinkerton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 173 pages of information about Early Australian Voyages.

Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier eBook

John Pinkerton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 173 pages of information about Early Australian Voyages.

We saw a great many places where they had made fires, and where there were commonly three or four boughs stuck up to windward of them; for the wind, (which is the sea-breeze), in the day-time blows always one way with them, and the land-breeze is but small.  By their fire-places we should always find great heaps of fish-shells of several sorts; and it is probable that these poor creatures here lived chiefly on the shell-fish, as those I before described did on small fish, which they caught in wires or holes in the sand at low water.  These gathered their shell-fish on the rocks at low water but had no wires (that we saw), whereby to get any other sorts of fish; as among the former I saw not any heaps of shells as here, though I know they also gathered some shell-fish.  The lances also of those were such as these had; however, they being upon an island, with their women and children, and all in our power, they did not there use them against us, as here on the continent, where we saw none but some of the men under head, who come out purposely to observe us.  We saw no houses at either place, and I believe they have none, since the former people on the island had none, though they had all their families with them.

Upon returning to my men I saw that though they had dug eight or nine feet deep, yet found no water.  So I returned aboard that evening, and the next day, being September 1st, I sent my boatswain ashore to dig deeper, and sent the seine within him to catch fish.  While I stayed aboard I observed the flowing of the tide, which runs very swift here, so that our nun-buoy would not bear above the water to be seen.  It flows here (as on that part of New Holland I described formerly) about five fathom; and here the flood runs south-east by south till the last quarter; then it sets right in towards the shore (which lies here south-south-west and north north-east) and the ebb runs north-west by north.  When the tides slackened we fished with hook and line, as we had already done in several places on this coast; on which in this voyage hitherto we had found but little tides; but by the height, and strength, and course of them hereabouts, it should seem that if there be such a passage or strait going through eastward to the great South Sea, as I said one might suspect, one would expect to find the mouth of it somewhere between this place and Rosemary Island, which was the part of New Holland I came last from.

Next morning my men came aboard and brought a runlet of brackish water which they had got out of another well that they dug in a place a mile off, and about half as far from the shore; but this water was not fit to drink.  However, we all concluded that it would serve to boil our oatmeal, for burgoo, whereby we might save the remains of our other water for drinking, till we should get more:  and accordingly the next day we brought aboard four hogsheads of it:  but while we were at work about the well we were sadly pestered with the flies, which were more troublesome to us than the sun, though it shone clear and strong upon us all the while very hot.  All this while we saw no more of the natives, but saw some of the smoke of some of their fires at two or three miles distance.

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Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.