During our stay, the bush was thoughtlessly set on fire by some of our people, and continued burning for several days, until nearly the whole island had been passed over; the long dry grass and dead trees blazing very fiercely under the influence of a high wind. At night the sight of the burning scrub was very fine when viewed from a distance, but I did not forget that I had one day been much closer to it than was pleasant--in fact, it was only by first soaking my clothes in a pool among the rocks, emptying the contents of my powder-flask to prevent the risk of being blown up, and then making a desperate rush through a belt of burning scrub, that I succeeded in reaching a place of safety.
Singularly enough, the Asp's dinghy was picked up uninjured on one of the sandy beaches of this island, and on December 7th we left the anchorage with a strong south-easterly wind, and anchored for the night under one of Sir James Smith's group. On the following day we ran through part of Whitsunday Passage, so named by Cook, and anchored in Port Molle, in seven and a half fathoms, a quarter of a mile off shore. The best anchorage here appears to be in the second bay as you round the end of the island, forming the south-east side of the harbour; it may be known by a sandy beach at the head.
During our stay of two days, search was made for water in every likely spot, but none could be found. In the dried up beds of three shallow lagoons (one of which I had seen half filled four years before) we found native wells, one dug to the depth of six feet, but the water had disappeared.
PORT MOLLE.
Port Molle, besides being a well sheltered harbour from all prevailing winds, has a much more pleasing aspect than almost any place I have seen on the north-east coast of Australia. To ourselves the change was agreeable; instead of the monotonous gumtrees and mangroves of Port Curtis and the scantily wooded stony hills of the Percy Isles, we had here many varieties of woodland vegetation, including some large patches of dense brush or jungle, in which one might observe every shade of green from the sombre hue of the pine, to the pale green of the cabbage-palm.
Some rare birds were procured in the brushes--two of them appear here to attain their southern limits of distribution upon the north-east coast of Australia; they are the Australian sunbird (Cinnyris australis) reminding one of the humming birds from its rich metallic colouring, and the Megapodius tumulus, a rasorial bird, the size of a fowl, which constructs great mounds of earth, leaves, sticks, stones, and coral, in which the eggs are deposited at a depth of several feet from the surface, and left there to be hatched by the heat of the fermenting mass of vegetable matter. In addition to these, our sportsmen were successful in procuring numbers of the pheasant-tailed pigeon, and the brush-turkey (Talegalla lathami) the latter much esteemed, from the goodness of its flesh. Many plants and insects as well as several landshells, new to science, which will elsewhere be alluded to, were added to the collection. Doubtless fish are also plentiful here, but we were prevented from hauling the seine by the remains of a wreck in the centre of a flat of muddy sand at the head of the bay where we were anchored; the vessel, I have since heard, had come in contact with a coral reef, and been run on shore here, in order to save a portion of her stores.
CAPE UPSTART. FIND NO WATER.
December 10th.
In company with the Asp we ran up to the northward to Cape Upstart, a distance of about ninety miles, and anchored in five fathoms off the sandy beach inside the point. Two boats were immediately sent to search for water, but we found the pools where the Fly had watered, in 1844, completely empty; and it was not until the deep rocky bed of the torrent had been traced upwards of a mile higher up on the following morning, that fresh water was met with; but at too great a distance from the shore, to be available for our purposes. Judging from the almost total want of water at all the places hitherto visited on this coast since entering the tropics that there was little probability of our finding it at Goold Island, Captain Stanley determined to proceed no further, but return at once to Sydney, by way of Moreton Bay, and letters were left for Lieutenant Yule signifying this intention.
RETURN TO SYDNEY.