Near the camp at Cawndilla
Our camp at Cawndilla was on the right bank of the Williorara, about half a mile above where it enters the lake. Without intending it, we dispossessed the natives of the ground which they had occupied before our arrival, but they were not offended. Our tents stood on a sand bank close to the creek, and was shaded by gum-trees and banksias; behind us to the S.W. there were extensive open plains, and along the edge of the basin of Cawndilla, as well as to some distance in its bed, there was an abundance of feed for our cattle: the locality would be of great value as a station if it were near the located districts of South Australia.
The term Boocolo is I believe generally given to the chief or elder of the tribe, and thus was applied by the natives to me, as chief of the party. The boocolo of the Cawndilla tribe was an old man with grey hairs and rather sharp features, below the ordinary stature, but well made and active. Of all the race with whom I have communicated, his manners were the most pleasing. There was a polish in them, a freedom and grace that would have befitted a drawing-room. It was his wont to visit my tent every day at noon, and to sleep during the heat; but he invariably asked permission to do this before he composed himself to rest, and generally laid down at my feet. Differing from the majority of the natives, he never asked for anything, and although present during our meals kept away from the table. If offered anything he received it with becoming dignity, and partook of it without displaying that greedy voracity which the natives generally exhibit over their meals. He was a man, I should say, in intellect and feeling greatly in advance of his fellows. We all became exceedingly partial to this old man, and placed every confidence in him; although, as he did not understand the language of the Murray natives, we gained little information from him as to the remote country.
The boocolo of Cawndilla had two sons; but as the circumstances under which they were more particularly brought forward occurred on the return of the expedition from the interior, I shall not mention them here; but will conclude these remarks by describing an event that took place the day after our removal from the Darling. The men who had been out chaining left the flags standing after their work, and came to the camp. When Mr. Poole went out the next morning he found that one of them had been taken away. The natives, when charged with the theft, stoutly denied it, and said that it had been stolen by one of the Darling tribe in returning to the river. I therefore directed him, as he generally superintended the issue of presents and provisions to the natives, to stop all further supplies. The old boocolo failed in his endeavours to recover the flag, and the natives who visited the camp were evidently under restraint. On the following day the boocolo came to my tent, and I spoke angrily to him. "Why," I asked, "has the black fellow taken that which did not belong to him? I do not take anything from you. I do not kill your kangaroos or take your fish." The old man was certainly much annoyed, and went out of the tent to our fire, at which there were several natives with whom he had an earnest conversation; this terminated by two of them starting for the Darling, from whence, on the following day, they brought back the flag and staff, which they said had been taken by three of the Darling natives as they had stated already. Probably such was the case, and we admitted the excuse.
The base line was completed on the 19th, and measured six miles. I was anxious to have made it of greater length, but the ground would not admit of it. The angles were necessarily very acute; but the bearings were frequently repeated, and found to agree. I was the less anxious on the point because my intention was to check any error by another line as soon as I could.
The position we had taken up was a very favourable one, since being on the right or northern bank of the creek, we were, by the flooding of the lake, cut off from the Darling natives. I now therefore determined on making an excursion into the interior to the N.W., to examine the ranges seen by Mr. Poole, and to ascertain if, as he supposed, there was a body of water to the westward of them. With this view I engaged Topar to accompany us, and on the 21st left the camp, with Mr. Browne, Flood, and Morgan, taking the light cart with our provisions and some water-casks. During the recent rains the weather had been very cold, but excessive heat succeeded it. The day before we started the thermometer rose as high as 112 degrees during a violent hot wind; and certainly if the following day had been equally warm we could not have proceeded on our journey. Fortunately for us, however, the wind shifted to the S.W. during the night, and the morning was cool and refreshing. I should have commenced this trip two or three days earlier, but on the 20th we were surprised by the reappearance of old Nadbuck, who had turned back with some natives he met on the way to our camp, with letters from Moorundi. The old man was really overjoyed to see us again. He said he had left Camboli well advanced on his journey, and that he would have reached Lake Victoria before he (Nadbuck) had reached us. Some of the letters he brought requiring answers, I was unable to arrange for my intended departure on the 19th. The 20th being a day of excessive heat, we could not have ventured abroad; but as I have stated, on the 21st we commenced the journey under more favourable circumstances than we had anticipated. The old boocolo took leave of Mr. Browne and myself, according, I suppose, to the custom of his people, by placing his hands on our shoulders and bending his head so as to touch our breasts; in doing which he shed tears. Topar, seated on the cart, was followed by his mother who never expected to see him again. I had given Topar a blanket, which he now gave to his parent, and thus set off with us as naked as he was born. I mention this the more readily because I have much to detail to his discredit, and therefore in justice, I think, I am bound to record anything to his advantage. At a quarter of a mile from the camp we crossed the little sand hill which separates the two basins of Cawndilla and Minandichi, from which we descended into the flats of the latter, but at a mile rose, after crossing a small creek, to the level of the great plains extending between us and the ranges. Our first course over these plains was on a bearing of 157 degrees to the west of south, or N.N.W. nearly. They were partly covered by brush and partly open; the soil was a mixture of clay and sand, and in many places they resembled, not only in that but in their productions, the plains of Adelaide. A good deal of grass was growing on them in widely distributed tufts, but mixed with salsolaceous plants. The trees consisted of a new species of casuarina, a new caparis, with some hakea, and several species of very pretty and fragrant flowering shrubs. At twelve miles we changed our course to 135 degrees to the west of south, or N.W., and kept upon it for the remainder of the day, direct for a prominent hill in the ranges before us. [Note 7. Coonbaralba Station, No. 2.] The hills Mr. Poole had visited then bore a few degrees to the east of north, distant from twelve to fourteen miles, and were much lower than those towards which we were going, continuing northwards. The country as we advanced became more open and barren. We traversed plains covered with atriplex and rhagodiae, in the midst of which there were large bare patches of red clay. In these rain water lodges, but being exceedingly shallow they soon dry up and their surfaces become cracked and blistered. From the point at which we changed our course the ground gradually rose, and at 26 miles we ascended a small sand hill with a little grass growing upon it. From this hill we descended into and crossed a broad dry creek with a gravelly bed, and as its course lay directly parallel to our own, we kept in the shade of the gum-trees that were growing along its banks. At about four miles beyond this point Topar called out to us to stop near a native well he then shewed us, for which we might in vain have hunted. From this we got a scanty supply of bad water, after some trouble in cleaning and clearing it, insomuch that we were obliged to bale it out frequently during the night to obtain water for our horses. This creek, like others, was marked by a line of gum-trees on either side; and from the pure and clean gravel in its bed, I was led to infer that it was subject to sudden floods. We could trace the line of trees upon it running upwards to the N.W. close up to the foot of the ranges, and down southwards, until the channel seemed to be lost in the extensive flats of that depressed region.
Topar called this spot "Murnco Murnco." As the horses had fared indifferently during our stay, and he assured us there was a finer well higher up the creek, we pushed on at an early hour the next morning, keeping on the proper right bank of the creek, and having an open barren country to the south, with an apparent dip to the south-west; to our left, some undulations already noticed by us, assumed more the shape of hills. The surface was in many places covered with small fragments of white quartz, which together with a conglomerate rock cropped out of the ground where it was more elevated. There was nothing green to meet the eye, except the little grass in the bed of the creek itself, and a small quantity on the plains.
At two miles on our former bearing Topar stopped close to another well, but it was dry and worthless; we therefore pushed on to the next, and after removing a quantity of rubbish, found a sufficiency of water both for ourselves and the horses, but it was bitter to the taste, and when boiled was as black as ink from the decoction of gum leaves; the water being evidently the partial and surface drainage from the hills. We stopped here however to breakfast. Whilst so employed, Topar's quick and watchful eye caught sight of some smoke rising from the bed of the creek about a mile above us. He was now all impatience to be off, to overtake the party who had kindled it. Nothing could exceed his vehement impetuosity and impatience, but this was of no avail, as the natives who had probably seen our approach, kept in front of us and avoided a meeting. We rode for five miles on our original bearing of 135 degrees to the west of north, or N.W. the direct bearing of the hill for which we were making, Coonbaralba. At five miles Topar insisted on crossing the creek, and led us over the plains on a bearing of 157 degrees to the west of north, thus changing his purpose altogether. He assigned as a reason that there was no water in the creek higher up, and that we must go to another place where there was some. I was somewhat reluctant to consent to this, but at length gave way to him; we had not however gone more than two and a half miles, when he again caught sight of smoke due west of us, and was as earnest in his desire to return to the creek as he had been to leave it. Being myself anxious to communicate with the natives I now the more readily yielded to his entreaties. Where we came upon it there was a quantity of grass in its bed, but although we saw the fire at which they had been, the natives again escaped us. Mr. Browne and Topar ran their track up the creek, and soon reached a hut opposite to which there was a well. On ascending a little from its bed they discovered a small pool of water in the centre of a watercourse joining the main branch hereabouts from the hills. Round this little pool there was an unusual verdure. From this point we continued to trace the creek upwards, keeping it in sight; but the ground was so stony and rough, and the brush approached so close to the banks that I descended into its bed, and halted at sunset after a fatiguing day's journey without water, about which we did not much care; the horses having had a good drink not long before and their feed being good, the want of water was not much felt by them. Topar wished to go on to some other water at which he expected to find the natives, and did not hesitate for a moment in thus contradicting his former assertion. This however I would not allow him to do alone, but Mr. Browne good-naturedly walked with him up the creek, and at less than a mile came up on a long and beautiful pond He informed me that it was serpentine in shape and more than eighty yards long, but as there was no grass in its neighbourhood I did not move to it. It was evident that Topar had intended leading us past this water, and it was owing to his anxiety to see the natives that we had now discovered it.
On the following morning I determined to take the direction of our movements on myself, and after we had breakfasted at the long water-hole, struck across the plains, and took up a course of 142 degrees to the west of south for a round hill which I proposed ascending. Topar seeing us determined, got into a state of alarm almost bordering on frenzy; he kept shouting out "kerno, kerno," "rocks, rocks," and insisted that we should all be killed. This however had no effect on us, and we continued to move towards a spur, the ascent of which appeared to be less difficult than any other point of the hills. We reached its base at 10 a.m., and had little trouble in taking the cart up. On gaining the top of the first rise, we descended into and crossed a valley, and ascending the opposite side found ourselves on the summit of the range, the surface being much less broken than might have been anticipated, insomuch that we had every hope that our progress amongst the hills would be comparatively easy; but in pushing for the one I wished to ascend, our advance was checked by a deep ravine, and I was obliged to turn towards another hill of nearly equal height on our left. We descended without much difficulty into a contiguous valley, but the ascent on the opposite side was too rough for the cart. We had pressed up it along a rocky watercourse, in which I was obliged to leave Morgan and Topar. Mr. Browne, myself, and Flood, with our horses reached the top of the hill at half-past twelve. Although the position commanded a considerable portion of the horizon there was nothing cheering in the view. Everything below us was dark and dreary, nor was there any indication of a creek to take us on to the north-west. We could see no gum-trees in that direction, nor indeed could we at an elevation of 1600 feet above the plains distinctly make out the covering of the ground below. It appeared to be an elevated table land surrounded by hills, some of which were evidently higher than that on which we stood.
The descent to the westward was still more pre cipitous than the side we had ascended. The pass through which the creek issued from the hills was on our left, Coonbaralba being between us and it, but that hill was perfectly inaccessible; I thought it better therefore to return to sleep at the water where we had breakfasted, with a view to running the creek up into the ranges on the following morning. After taking bearings of the principal objects visible from our station, we rejoined Morgan and descended to the plains. There was a little water in the creek leading from the hill I had at first intended to ascend, to the S.W., which was no doubt a branch of the main creek. On our return we saw that beautiful flower the Clianthus formosa, in splendid blossom on the plains. It was growing amidst barrenness and decay, but its long runners were covered with flowers that gave a crimson tint to the ground.