Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 515 pages of information about Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete.

Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 515 pages of information about Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete.
were not disappointed, although in every other particular, the landscape was one of the most unpromising description.  To the S. and S.E., the country might be said to stretch away in one unbroken plain, for it was so generally covered with wood that every inequality was hidden from our observation.  To the S.W. the river line was marked out by a succession of red cliffs, similar to those we had already passed.  To the north, the interior was evidently depressed; it was overgrown with a low scrub, and seemed to be barren in the extreme.  The elevations upon which we stood were similar to the sand-hills near the coast, and had not a blade of grass upon them.  Yet, notwithstanding the sterility of the soil, the large white amarillis which grew in such profusion on the alluvial plains of the Macquarie, was also abundant here.  But it had lost its dazzling whiteness, and had assumed a sickly yellow colour and its very appearance indicated that it was not in a congenial soil.

Lindesay river.

We passed two very considerable junctions, the one coming from the S.E., the other from the north.  Both had currents in them, but the former was running much stronger than the latter.  It falls into the Murray, almost opposite to the elevations I have been describing, and, if a judgment can be hazarded from its appearance at its embouchure, it must, in its higher branches, be a stream of considerable magnitude.  Under this impression, I have called it the Lindesay, as a tribute of respect to my commanding officer, Colonel Patrick Lindesay of the 39th regt.  I place it in east long. 140 degrees 29 minutes, and in lat. 33 degrees 58 minutes south.  Mr. Hume is of opinion that this is the most southerly of the rivers crossed by him and Mr. Hovel in 1823; but, as I have already remarked, I apprehend that all the rivers those gentlemen crossed, had united in one main stream above the junction of the Morumbidgee, and I think it much more probable that this is a new river, and that it rises to the westward of Port Phillips, rather than in the S.E. angle of the coast.

Natives become troublesome.

We found the blacks who had deserted us with a tribe at the junction, but it was weak in point of numbers; as were also two other tribes or hordes to whom we were introduced in rapid succession.  Taken collectively, they could not have amounted to 230 men, women, and children.  The last of these hordes was exceedingly troublesome, and I really thought we should have been obliged to quarrel with them.  Whether it was that we were getting impatient, or that our tempers were soured, I know not, but even M’Leay, whose partiality towards the natives was excessive at the commencement of our journey, now became weary of such constant communication as we had kept up with them.  Their sameness of appearance, the disgusting diseases that raged among them, their abominable filth, the manner in which they pulled us about, and the impossibility

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Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.