Talking of steam puts me in mind of the anxiety felt in Australia to secure the advantage of the Indian Overland Mail, and of a plan for effecting their object which I have frequently thought of. On the arrival of the mail at Port Essington, from Singapore, why should it not be sent to Sydney in a steamer by sea, viâ Captain King's inner passage through Torres' Straits, instead of adopting the far more expensive and uncertain overland route formerly mentioned? This may seem a bold, and, to most people, an extraordinary suggestion; the plan is, however, in my opinion, practicable at all seasons of the year, though more particularly so during the fine or south-east monsoon. I have sailed through Torres' Straits, and would not hesitate a moment to undertake to carry a powerful steamer from Port Essington to Sydney, through the admirably surveyed channel just mentioned. During the south-east monsoon, from April till September, the wind would be against her; but she would have the benefit of moderate and clear weather, and find no difficulty in seeing and evading every danger. In the north-west monsoon, the steamer would have a fair wind, but hazy weather, with frequent squalls to contend against. The thick weather would undoubtedly be a disadvantage, as it would render objects less easily distinguishable; but then, the strong north-west winds and squalls would knock up a heavy sea, which would make the water break on every reef, thereby rendering them easily both seen and heard in the thickest weather. On the coast of Sumatra, I have heard the breakers seven miles off. Allowing that they can be heard half that distance, this would give a steamer plenty of time and space to keep clear of them. Running in the night would, of course, be out of the question in any season. It appears to me, that there is as much real danger in beating through the Palaware passage in November and December, which dozens of vessels do every year, as there possibly could be to a steamer in passing to and fro between Port Essington and Sydney, at any season of the year, by King's inner passage. The weather in the Palaware, during the months I have mentioned, is as thick and stormy as can well be imagined; and the reefs, shoals, and other perils of navigation are numerous enough. The best route for passengers proceeding to Australia from Suez, would be viâ Ceylon, whence a steamer would run down south-south-east to the fortieth parallel of south latitude in thirteen days, under steam: then she would get the prevailing strong westerly winds, which would take her under canvas to Hobart Town in ten or twelve days: let her stop two days there to take in coal and land passengers, and, in three days more, she would be in Sydney. By this route, the passenger for Sydney would find himself at his journey's end in sixty-three or sixty-five days from Southampton, while the mail viâ Marseilles would be of four days shorter date. I have my doubts, indeed, whether New South Wales is in a position to bear the expense of such a plan: it certainly could not be a profitable venture for years to come; and whether the Colonists would be willing to be so much per annum out of pocket, in the meantime, remains to be seen.
In describing Port Jackson, I omitted to notice the neighbouring harbour, called Botany Bay, originally discovered by Captain Cook, and subsequently abandoned for its rival. It is a noble and beautiful bay, entered through a gap in the cliff facing the Pacific. This being much wider than that leading into Port Jackson, and the heads not overlapping each other in the least, Botany Bay is exposed to the fury of the easterly gales, which renders it, during their prevalence, an unsafe harbour. From its great width, I was induced to suppose that this evil might be obviated by ships seeking shelter behind the heads; but, on inquiry, I learned, that the depth of water does not admit of this: the water is shallow all round the bay, which compels vessels to anchor a considerable distance from the shore, and leaves them exposed to the eastward. In short, as a harbour, it will not bear comparison with Port Jackson. The name of Botany Bay was given to it from the very great variety and beauty of the native flowers found on its shores. I am not botanist enough to describe these flowers, but I noticed them with surprise and admiration. I saw nothing else, however, to attract any one to the neighbourhood: the soil is wretchedly poor, principally covered with scrub, and, with the exception of a few spots in the hollows, utterly valueless to the farmer. A few half-starved cows only, belonging to Sydney families, and called the town herd, may be seen picking up the poor and scanty herbage. In this neighbourhood, the Sydney hounds meet, and occasionally amuse their proprietors, by chasing a miserable "native dog" to death. The only buildings of any interest on the shores of this bay, are, the monument built by the French Government to the memory of the unfortunate La Perouse, and a solitary mill on the banks of a little stream that runs into it from the westward. How this mill is employed in such a lonely place, where no cultivation is to be seen, I cannot imagine, but should not wonder if a few pounds' weight of tobacco and gallons of spirits found their way into the Colony hereabout, without benefiting the revenue.
In April 1839, I left the shores of Australia, with my family, bound for Batavia and Singapore viâ Torres' Straits. We had a fine run up the coast, and made the celebrated Barrier Reef on the morning of the fourteenth day after leaving Sydney. We were fortunate in finding a magnificent entrance into the Straits, in latitude 12° 18' South, and were fairly inside the barrier by nine A. M. This entrance, which is at least three miles wide, it is worth any ship's while to seek for: it may be known by two small rocks on the south side, as you enter, resembling hay-cocks in shape and size: we saw them three miles off, and they were the only objects visible above water, on the portion of the Barrier within our view. From our entrance, we had a fine run, and found nothing to stop us for a minute (during daylight), till clear of Booby Island at the western end of the Straits, which we passed at 10 A. M. on the seventeenth day from Sydney.
These celebrated Straits pick up and destroy some half a dozen ships annually, and are so much dreaded by underwriters, that they refuse to insure loaded vessels through them. From my own observation, and what I have heard from others who have passed through Torres' Straits on various occasions, it appears to me, that a great proportion of this loss of property arises from carelessness on the part of ship-masters. The current in the Pacific Ocean runs very strong to the north-west in the neighbourhood of the Barrier; and this current is often forgotten or not sufficiently allowed for by ship-masters the night before they expect to make the reef. At sun-down, the night before we made it, we were eighty miles from it; we went under easy sail all night, and, from the distance logged during the night, expected to make the reef at noon, having made all sail at daylight; instead of which, we came suddenly on it at 8 A. M., thus having been thrown four hours out of our reckoning since sun-set the night before. Many ships, by not heaving-to at all, or not doing so in time, the night previous to making the reef, drift too far to the northward during the night, miss the passage they were endeavouring to make, and are compelled to run along the reef in search of another; for there is no getting back to the southward against wind and current. This neglect throws many a vessel up to the Murray Islands' passages, which are notoriously the most dangerous, and are now generally avoided by shipping. Then there is hazy weather occasionally in those parts, even in the finest months: during its continuance, no vessel ought to approach the Barrier, though many are imprudent enough to do so, and too frequently pay the penalty. In the Barrier, there are many gaps, called "horse-shoes," which, in thick weather, look like real entrances, the breakers at the bottom of them not being visible from the ship. I have known many vessels lost by taking a horse-shoe for a real entrance in hazy weather. Other vessels get wrecked from paying too little attention to the dangers that beset them, after getting safe through the Barrier. There are small patches of reef here and there, in the middle of the many channels that run between the main reefs: these pick up many vessels that might be saved, were a careful look-out kept on board. I could give instances of losses happening in each of these ways; but the careless have suffered so severely from their neglect, that I would not hurt them by naming the ships.
We had a fine run to Batavia, where we arrived in thirty-one days from Sydney. A sail from Australia to any part of the Malayan Archipelago, during the south-east monsoon, is, perhaps, the pleasantest voyage a traveller could undertake: he has smooth water and a fair wind all the way, with a constant succession of magnificent scenery among the numerous islands of perpetual summer with which those seas are studded.
I have heard many seamen talk lightly of the dangers of Torres' Straits and the Barrier Reef, and have known more than one of those over-confident gentry subsequently wrecked there. For my own part, I have a great awe of those dangers, and can vouch for some ship's crews having the same feeling. On our approach to the Barrier, our crew, which consisted of as rattle-pated a set as sailors usually are, were doubly active, obeyed every order with alacrity, and so quietly, that the fall of a pin might have been heard at any part of the ship. Some ships avoid entering the Barrier towards sun-set: this precaution is unnecessary, if they are sure that the entrance they are approaching is a true one. Although, outside the Barrier, there are no soundings at a hundred fathoms, a ship is not twice her own length inside it, before she is in good anchorage with eighteen to twenty-five fathoms water. There, she may drop her anchor, and ride in perfect safety till daylight enables her to pursue her course. Were she to keep outside all night, the current would drift her to the northward, and compel her to seek a fresh entrance next day. The Barrier Reef extends from the coast of New Holland to that of Papua or New Guinea, with numerous gaps or entrances in it, which appear to be kept open by the current that, for six months in the year, runs through them from the Pacific to the Indian Seas, and in the contrary direction during the other six. Notwithstanding this current, however, I think it extremely probable, that the industrious coral insect, whose labours never cease within the Tropics, will, sooner or later, fill up the entire space, close Torres' Straits, and join those two mighty islands, between which the Barrier Reef, or, more properly, Reefs, now stand like a line of gigantic stepping-stones. The gaps in the Reef, in and about the ninth and tenth parallels of south latitude, are much narrower than those further south, some of them being not twenty yards wide; which looks as if, agreeably to my theory, the minute architect had commenced operations on the coast of Papua, and was gradually working his way southward. What a magnificent line for a rail-road this Reef will then make, with the boundless Pacific on one side, and the reefs and islands of the Straits on the other! What a splendid thoroughfare would this highway form to New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland, and the countless islands in their immediate vicinity! But I shall be thought to be looking rather too far into futurity.
On our passage from Booby Island to the Java Sea, we passed through the Straits of Alas, which run between the Islands of Lombak and Sambawa. The scenery in these straits is very fine. On the left, you have Lombak Hill, 7000 feet high, sloping gradually from the peak to the sea, and covered with thick forest. On the right, is the coast of Sambawa, exhibiting the most extraordinary collection of sugar-loaf hills I ever saw: they look as if they had been dropped there at random in a shower. The whole collection would hardly be seen on the top of Lombak hill. Half this island was laid completely waste in 1816, by an eruption of one of its volcanic mountains: thousands of the inhabitants, with their cattle and poneys, were killed; and the effects are visible on the spot to this day. Sambawa is celebrated for its race of poneys, which are certainly very fine, spirited little animals. Hundreds of them are brought by the native boats every year to Batavia and Singapore, at both which places they meet with a ready market.