From the account of Lieutenant P.B. Stewart,* of which I have given a brief abstract above, it appears that there is some good land on the Peninsula, though such is decidedly not the case near the settlement.
(*Footnote. This officer has since forwarded me his route. It appears that on leaving Victoria he proceeded to the south-west side of the Peninsula, and followed the shore to the neck, when taking an east direction he crossed it, and then pursuing a northerly course made his way to Middle Head, on the side of the harbour opposite the settlement. The frequent opportunities Lieutenant Stewart had of determining his positions by cross-bearings of the islands, leave no doubt as to the correctness of his route.)
The reports of late sent in respecting the climate have, in some measure, been unfavourable; and, as I have observed, the appearance of the garrison was rather sickly; but may not this arise partly from the indifferent manner in which they are housed? Small, low, thatched cottages, in a temperature much too warm for Europeans to labour in constantly, are apt to engender disease. There is, besides, a mangrove swamp immediately behind the settlement, which at present decreases its salubrity. With regard to the range of the thermometer, it has been known as low as 62 degrees, and it is never so high, by ten or twenty degrees, as I have seen it in South Australia during the hot winds: the average, however, is about 83 degrees. The fact that the site of Victoria lies so far from the entrance of the harbour is injurious to its prosperity, as it prevents many vessels from calling, and deprives it of the breezes that constantly prevail on the coast, and would of course conduce to its healthiness.*
(*Footnote. The following remarks from Mr. Bynoe, on the climate of Northern Australia, corroborate the views put forward in the text:
I find on a reference to the Medical Journals, as well as to a Meteorological table kept by me during a period of six years, on the coasts of Australia, and under every variety of climate, that we had no diseases peculiar to that continent, and I am led to believe it a remarkably healthy country. On the North and North-west coasts, where you find every bight and indentation of land fringed with mangroves, bordering mud flats, and ledges formed by corallines in every stage of decomposition, with a high temperature, no fevers or dysenteries were engendered.
Our ship's company were constantly exposed, in boats, to all the vicissitudes from wet to dry weather, sleeping in mangrove creeks for many months in succession, pestered by mosquitoes during the hours of repose, yet they still remained very healthy; and the only instance where the climate was at all prejudicial (if such a term can be applied) was in the Victoria River, on the north coast, where the heat was, at one period, very great, and the unavoidable exposure caused two of the crew to be attacked with Coup de Soleil.
Our casualties consisted of two deaths during our stay on the Australian coast, one from old age; and the other, a case of dysentery, contracted at Coepang.
It may not be uninteresting to state, that from the time that Port Essington was settled in 1838, up to the period of our last visit to that military post, and for some time after, no endemial form of disease had manifested itself, and the only complaints that the men had been suffering from were diseases such as were usually to be met with in a more temperate clime, and those were few. But we must take into consideration their isolated position, the constant sameness of their life, their small low thatched cottages, mostly with earthen floors; their inferior diet, and also the absence or scantiness of vegetables. Most of the men, moreover, experience a constant yearning for home, which, yearly increasing, terminates in despondency, and leaves them open to the attacks of disease. Scorbutic symptoms were at one period very prevalent, arising principally from the poor form of diet; similar cases occurred in a former settlement on that part of the coast, from the same causes; but although Port Essington has been of late visited by sickness, I do not consider it by any means an unhealthy spot.)
Considering Port Essington as a harbour of refuge for the crews of ships wrecked in Torres Strait, it is certainly far removed from the scene of distress; and looking upon it in this light only, a military station at Cape York would probably be attended with greater benefit and less expense, though, as it might be expected to meet with annoyance from the natives of the islands in Torres Strait, who are badly disposed and wander over a great space in search of plunder, the party should not be very small. There is, moreover, no real harbour; but, at the same time, as the post would be on a low narrow projection, with a seabreeze sweeping over it in either monsoon, it would doubtless be cooler than at Port Essington.
I may observe that the only instance that came under my immediate notice of the benefit of a harbour of refuge on the north coast, was that of a vessel wrecked too far to the westward to reach Cape York, the crew of which arrived at Port Essington in their boats.