SCENERY AND THUNDERSTORM.
On the northern bank lofty mountains, crowned with castellated summits, rear their sterile heads over the broad waters, and fling their giant shadows on the bosom of the basin, forming a scene of surpassing beauty.
We had entered the more contracted channel of the river, when there came on a tremendous squall of wind, rain, thunder, and most vivid lightning. The pealing echoes of the thunder as they bounded from height to height and from cliff to cliff was awfully magnificent; whilst the rugged mountains which had just before looked golden in the bright light of the setting sun were now shrouded in gloomy mists, and capped with dark clouds from which issued incessant and dazzling flashes of lightning.
During this grand and terrific elemental convulsion our little boat was driven powerless before the blast. The impenetrable forests of mangroves which clothed the riverbanks obliging us to run far up the stream until at last a convenient opening enabled us to land upon the southern shore.
DELUSIVE APPEARANCE ON THE ROCKS.
We had not long landed when the rain ceased and, as we found several natural caverns in the rock and plenty of dead mangrove trees, we proceeded to make ourselves comfortable for the night; but the men soon reported that they saw the smoke of a native fire close to us, and Captain Browse and myself, under the conviction that such was the case, darted with Mr. Walker to endeavour to gain an interview. But, as we proceeded over the rocks, the smoke appeared gradually to retire, always keeping about the same distance from us: and we at last ascertained that what had appeared to us to be smoke was nothing but the rising vapour occasioned by the cold rain falling on sandstone rocks, which had during the whole day been exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun.
We had now become so much accustomed to sleeping without any covering, and upon hard rocks, that we should not have minded our exposure had it not been for the rain which fell during the night and beat in under the rocks, beneath which we had crept for shelter. The cold air of the morning awoke us long before daylight; and Mr. Walker and myself, having explored the country to the southward and climbed a high hill from which we had an extensive view, we started on our return to the schooner. In proceeding down the river we landed on an island, situate at the south-eastern extremity of St. George's Basin, just where the river runs into it. The presence of large dead trees on this island, which had evidently been swept down the river in the time of floods and washed up far above the usual water-mark, showed that Prince Regent's River is subject to the same sudden inundations as all other rivers in Australia which I have seen. During our passage down the river we saw no extent of good land in any one place.
STATE OF THE STOCK.
For the next few days we had almost uninterrupted bad weather. The party were all occupied in preparing the saddles, etc. The ponies having eaten off the grass in the ravine, we were compelled, about the 28th, to move them to the higher grounds. These at our first arrival on this coast were perfectly dry and burnt up; but since the heavy rains had set in they teemed with running springs, along the margins of which grew a scanty coating of grass. Being obliged to send the horses to a distance to graze delayed us a great deal for one portion of our party was occupied in attending upon them. Our sheep also now began to die off: they had up to this time improved rapidly and were doing very well, having, during the absence of the vessel, been regularly tended and driven to the high dry ground to feed; but now the pressure of business was so great that we were compelled in some degree to neglect them, and from this they suffered. The goats had from some cause never succeeded well.
From the period of their being landed many of the horses had declined very much, and several of them were by this time reduced to a very weakly state. This originated from the heavy rains and the excessive cold which accompanied them, as well as from some food they had eaten which had not agreed with them. On the 28th and 29th the rains increased in violence and duration; but we still continued our occupations of completing the packsaddles and arranging the stores in such small packages that they could easily in case of necessity be transported on men's shoulders.