Considering the few days given to sporting, our game-book contains a very tolerable list, comprising seven kangaroos, twenty quails, ten ducks, seven pigeons, two pheasants, and two ibises.
The natives in the neighbourhood of Port Essington are, like all others on the continent, very superstitious; they fancy that a large kind of tree, called the Imburra-burra, resembling the Adansonia, contains evil spirits. Here, also, as I have elsewhere observed, they fancy that after death they reappear as whites; the bones of the dead are frequently carried from place to place.
The reader will remember the native named Alligator, whom I have mentioned on a previous visit to Port Essington. I witnessed in his family an instance of affection for a departed child, which, though it exhibited itself in this peculiar manner, was extremely touching. The wife had treasured up the bones of the little one, and constantly carried them about with her, not as a memento mori, but as an object whereon to expend her tenderest emotions, whenever they swelled within her breast. At such times she would put together these bones with a rapidity that supposed a wonderful knowledge of osteology, and set them up that she might weep over them. Perhaps, in her imagination, as she performed this melancholy rite, the ghastly framework before her became indued with the comely form of infancy; bright eyes once more sparkled in those hollow cells, and a smile of ineffable delight hung where, in reality, was naught but the hideous grin of death. I exceedingly regret that the mother who could feel so finely was some time afterwards over-persuaded to part with the bones of her child.
I may here mention that the medical officer of the settlement was in the habit of extracting teeth for the natives, who found the European method much more easy than their own mode of knocking them out. The supercargo of a vessel, learning this fact, was anxious to become a purchaser of teeth to some extent for the London market, being persuaded that they would find a ready sale among the dentists; and it is more than probable that many of our fair ladies at home are indebted for the pearls on which the poets exhaust so much of their fancy to the rude natives of Australia.
Among the information I gained during this stay at Port Essington respecting the Macassar people, who periodically visit the coast, was that of their discovering a strait leading into the Gulf of Carpentaria, behind English Company's Islands. Passing Cape Wilberforce, called Udjung Turu, or Bearaway Point, they continue their course down the Gulf to the Wellesley Islands, named by them Pulo Tiga, or The Three Islands; this is the usual southern limit of their voyage. The Macassar proas that visit Port Essington, amounting in one season to fourteen, usually brought for barter tea, sugar, cloths, salt-fish, rice, etc. Several of the nakodhas, or masters, have expressed a wish to abandon fishing, and occupy themselves only in trade, if there is sufficient encouragement held out to them.
During our stay a report was brought into the settlement by the natives that there was a large vessel wrecked on the mainland, near the Alligator Rivers, which was accompanied by so many details of place and circumstance that Captain Stanley was induced to send Lieutenant Vallack, of the Britomart, away in the decked tender to procure information, and to render all assistance in his power. He was accompanied by several of the Port Essington natives; and on arriving at the Eastern River, found that there was no foundation for the report. But having got so far away from the settlement, he ascended the river some little distance, and towards sunset came on a tribe of natives. The anchor was let go, and signs were made to induce them to approach, for some time without success. At last, however, encouraged by seeing so many of their own countrymen, two or three of the more courageous ventured to draw near. The scene that followed was a curious illustration of the slight communication that exists between natives of different tribes, and also of the great difference in their language, as the strangers could hold no conversation with the people from Port Essington, who, when they found their own dialect was not understood, tried to explain themselves in such few words of broken English as were then used at the colony, and seemed very much surprised at their want of success. A large mess of boiled rice, which had been prepared by way of a feast for the newcomers, was then produced; but it was not before they saw their countrymen eagerly devouring it that they could be induced to eat, as they evidently did not know what it was. The result of Lieutenant Vallack's visit is hostile to the idea entertained that clothes given to natives at Port Essington pass into the interior, which I always much doubted. Had the fence before alluded to by me been run across the neck, and an out-station formed there, we should have had further acquaintance with the natives of the main, besides other advantages that would necessarily have accrued.
As it seemed extremely probable that the course of events would not again permit the Beagle to visit Port Essington, we naturally experienced some regret on our departure, and were led to speculate, with interest, on its future destiny. A young settlement, so remote and solitary, cannot fail to awaken the liveliest sympathy in the voyager. How small soever may be the circle of its present influence, the experience of the past teaches us confidently to expect that wherever a knot of Englishmen locate themselves, there are deposited the germs of future greatness. For Port Essington, a sphere of action, of great extent and importance, appears marked out by the hand of nature; though, to a careless observer, unskilled in discerning the undeveloped capabilities of geographical positions, it may appear in the light simply of an isolated military post. And, certainly, whatever may be its actual resources, little or nothing has, as yet, been done to ascertain them. We are still reduced to base our opinions on conjecture and hypothesis; we know nothing of the amount of commerce that might be carried on with the islands of the Indian Archipelago--nothing of the productions of the mainland--nothing of the extent to which colonization might be carried in the neighbourhood. Without data of this kind it is impossible, with any pretensions to accuracy, to estimate the probable future importance of our settlement at Port Essington, the value of which does not depend on the fertility of Cobourg Peninsula, any more than that of Gibraltar on the productiveness of the land within the Spanish lines. Victoria, if we regard its own intrinsic worth, might be blotted out of the list of our possessions without any material detriment to our interests; but its importance, as a commercial station, is incalculable. It is, indeed, to the country behind--at present unvisited, unexplored, a complete terra incognita--and to the islands within a radius of five hundred miles, that we must look if we would form a correct idea of the value of Port Essington to the Crown. At present it may seem idle, to some, to introduce these distant places as elements in the discussion of such a question; but no one who reflects on the power of trade to knit together even more distant points of the earth, will think it visionary to suppose that Victoria must one day--insignificant as may be the value of the districts in its immediate neighbourhood--be the centre of a vast system of commerce, the emporium, in fact, where will take place the exchange of the products of the Indian Archipelago for those of the vast plains of Australia. It may require some effort of the imagination, certainly, to discover the precursor of such a state of things in the miserable traffic now carried on by the Macassar proas; but still, I think, we possess some data on which to found such an opinion, and I am persuaded that Port Essington will ultimately hold the proud position I predict for it.
As steam communication, moreover, must soon be established between Singapore and our colonies on the south-eastern shores of Australia,* this port, the only really good one on the north coast, will be of vast importance as a coal depot.
(*Footnote. By this arrangement Sydney could be brought within nearly sixty days of England.)
As I have already observed, however, little pains have been taken to ascertain all the capabilities of the place, and to extend our acquaintance with the country behind. No European has ever yet penetrated any great distance beyond the neck that connects Cobourg Peninsula with the mainland; and even the report of the existence of the settlement has scarcely travelled farther. At least in 1841, when Lieutenant Vallack visited one of the Alligator rivers he found the natives completely ignorant that we had established ourselves in their neighbourhood.