In the present expedition, accordingly, it was determined to choose a time when there might be a sufficiency of water to enable the adventurous explorers to proceed in a canoe; and they accordingly carried with them one or two horses (which they proposed afterwards to turn loose)—the iron-work, and as much as was thought necessary of the frame of a canoe, which they proposed to put together and complete on their arrival on the margin of the lake. And as it was impossible to carry with them a sufficient store of provisions for the whole of their contemplated voyage, they boldly resolved to trust in great measure to their guns and fishing tackle, providing only a sufficiency of salt to preserve such game and fish as they might procure in their way.
The details of the expedition, curious and highly interesting as they are in themselves, we are compelled to omit, lest they should occupy the space wanted for a far more valuable and important portion of the narrative. It will be sufficient, therefore, to say, omitting particulars, that they were enabled to put their design in execution; and having constructed a kind of light flat-bottomed boat, of poles covered with bark (of the kind the natives use for their canoes), and fitted up with a slight awning, to afford shelter from the sun and the dews, they embarked on the above-mentioned shallow lake, and proceeded in a north-west direction; sometimes rowing, assisted occasionally by a sail, and oftener pushing themselves on with poles through the tangled aquatic plants which grew on the muddy bottom.
Their progress was at first tediously slow; but they were at no loss for provision, as the waters abounded with fish and wildfowl, of which they continued to obtain a sufficient supply throughout the voyage. After two days of troublesome navigation they found the water become deeper, and gained a sight of some elevated land towards the west, which they reached on the evening of the third day: they here found the lake not terminated, but confined within narrow limits by hills, for the most part of a rocky, sterile, and uninviting character: at length it became a broad river, flowing in a northerly direction, and serving evidently as a drain to the great expanse of lake they had passed. This gave them hopes of reaching (which was their great object) some large navigable river, which they might follow to the sea: they proceeded, therefore, though with considerable delay and difficulty from shoals and rapids, till, after more than two days’ navigation, the high ground receded, and they found themselves entering on another great expanse of water, so extensive that, in pursuing their adventurous course nearly in the same direction, they were, for the greater part of one day, out of sight of land.
They now arrived at another course of rocky hills, of considerable elevation, through which the waters found an exit by a narrow gorge: through this they proceeded in a direction northwards for a considerable distance, when they found the river again expanding itself at intervals into a chain of lakes, smaller but deeper than those they had passed, and surrounded by a much more agreeable country, which continued to improve as they advanced. They landed in several places, and in one instance came in contact with a party of natives, who were of a less savage aspect than those in the vicinity of our settlements, and showed no signs of hostility, and much less of alarm and astonishment than had been expected. From this circumstance, and also from steel knives being in the possession of two or three of them, on which they appeared to set great value, it was conjectured that they must, in their wanderings, have, at some time or other, approached our settlements: their language, however, was perfectly unintelligible to Mr. Jones, though he had a considerable acquaintance with that of the natives near Sydney.
Some days after, as they continued their progress, they fell in with another party of natives, who excited still more wonder and speculation in our travellers, from their having among them ornaments evidently fashioned from the tusks of boars; these (as it was understood from the signs they made, in answer to the questions put to them by the same means) they described themselves as having hunted with their dogs, and speared. But all doubt was removed the next day, by the travellers actually obtaining a sight of a wild hog in the woods, and afterwards of a herd of wild cattle, which they distinctly saw with their glasses: these animals being well known not to be indigenous in New Holland, afforded strong indications of the vicinity of some European settlement; though, as they felt certain of being far distant from the coast, they were utterly lost in conjecture.
After proceeding in the manner above described, through a long chain of lakes connected by the river which they were continuing to navigate, through a country continually improving in beauty and fertility, and presenting a strong contrast to the dreary rocks and marshes they had left behind, they were at length surprised and gratified, on entering a lake somewhat more extensive than the last, to see several fishing-boats, the men in which they ascertained by their glasses to be decently clothed, and white men. They ventured to approach and to hail them; and, to their unspeakable surprise and delight, they received an answer in English: the English was, indeed, not precisely similar to their own, but not differing so much from it as many of our provincial dialects; and in a short time the two parties were tolerably intelligible to each other.
We are compelled to pass over the interesting detail of the meeting, which was equally gratifying and surprising to both the parties; of the eager curiosity of their mutual inquiries; and of the hospitable invitation given, and, as may be supposed, joyfully accepted by the travellers. Accompanying their hosts in one of the fishing-boats, they found before them, on turning the point of a wooded promontory which had intercepted their view, a rich and partially cultivated country, interspersed with cheerful-looking villages, having much of an English air of comfort; though the whole was in a far ruder condition than much of what they saw afterwards, as the point they had reached was the extreme skirt of a comparatively recent settlement.
The reception they met with was most friendly and every way refreshing, after an anxious and toilsome journey of above a month. They found themselves, on the second day after their arrival in the colony, the guests of the chief magistrate of a neat town of considerable size, where they were surrounded by visitors from all parts, eager to obtain and to afford information, and overwhelming them with pressing invitations.
We are compelled to pass over the particulars of the several steps by which the travellers arrived at the knowledge of the singular country and people in the midst of which they found themselves. We have only space for a brief summary of the results.
They found themselves, then, in a nation of European, and chiefly, though not entirely, of English extraction, which had had no intercourse with Europe, or with any other portion of the civilized world, for nearly three centuries. Their numbers were estimated at between three and four millions; and they were divided into eleven distinct communities, existing in a sort of loosely federal union, or rather in a friendly relation, sanctioned and maintained by custom more than by any formal compact. And they found these several states, though in some respects differing in their governments and other institutions, agreeing in the manifestation of a high degree of civilization, considering the disadvantage they laboured under in their seclusion from the rest of the world. “Many points too,” says Mr. Sibthorpe, in his journal, “in which they differ the most widely from the customs and institutions of the people from which they sprang, are such as can hardly be reckoned marks of barbarism, even by those who regard them with surprise, and even with disapprobation; but are rather the result of the singular and, as some would consider them, whimsical notions of the extraordinary persons who took the lead among the first settlers.”