Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1 / With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales

by T. L. Mitchell

June 23.

Early this morning the natives were heard hailing us from the woods, and as soon as I had breakfasted I advanced to them with Burnett. They were seventeen in number, and five or six of the foremost held out green boughs. I also pulled one, but they called to me and beckoned me to lay aside my sword, which I accordingly did, and then they all sat down. They had good, expressive countenances, but they were not strong-looking men. One, whose physiognomy I thought very prepossessing, and much improved by the cheeks and other features being coloured red, appeared to be their chief. He sat in the middle of the front row, and though he said but little yet he was addressed by the more forward and talkative. This rough, manly, rosy-faced fellow was such a figure as Neptune or Jupiter are usually represented; he had also a flowing beard. The group were almost all marked with the smallpox. I could not gain any certain information from them about the course of the river or the bearing of the nearest sea; but they all pointed to the north-north-west when I made signs of rowing in water, or of large waves, etc. On quitting them I presented the king with a greyhound pup and a tomahawk. A total ignorance of the nature of the latter was a proof that we were indeed strangers to them; for, although the tool had a handle, they knew not what use to make of it until I showed them. We left them quite delighted with both gifts, which were doubtless as important to them as the discovery of a sea would then have been to me. The journey of this day opened prospects the most promising for such a discovery, for the river from that bend pursued a more westerly course. Ranges beyond ranges arose also in the south-west, while vast plains, without any indication of the Darling among them, extended before us to the west-south-west. I had some trouble indeed to get as near to the river as was indispensable for encampment; but at length we halted on a firm bit of ground, close to a very sharp bend in its course.

HOW TO AVOID THE SANDY HILLS AND SOFT PLAINS.

June 24.

We possessed nearly west over open ground skirted on the south by gentle eminences of red earth. There plains of soft naked soil were most distressing to the bullocks, and even to horses and men on foot; in the general direction of the river these plains extended to the horizon, but the southern boundary of small hills was a peculiar feature, not observed higher up. Though the base of these eminences consisted of fine blue clay, yet their tops were so sandy and soft that the carts sank deeper than on the plains. It was my study to keep along the side of these hills as much as my route would permit; for in general the best line for travelling through the valley of the Darling is along the edging of stiff clay always to be found near the base of the red sandhills, which form the limits of those softer plains that usually extend for several miles back from the river.

MACCULLOCH'S RANGE.

On ascending the highest of the hills on my left I discovered that the ground to the southward was much more broken, and the appearance of a valley between me and a range which I named after Dr. Macculloch raised my hopes of finding some change in the country. On ascending however another eminence to the right, I perceived the summit of a hill which bore west-north-west, and rather discouraged my hopes respecting the river, for I had assumed that its new direction towards the westward would continue. We crossed the hill and encamped about two miles to the southward of a bend of the river. Here there was a fall of about four feet over masses of ferruginous clay with selenites embedded.* The banks were lower at this point than usual, and the quantity of running water was rather increased, probably from the springs which we had latterly observed in great abundance in the banks, generally about two feet above the surface of the stream. On the plains this day we found much selenite.

(*Footnote. This clay, in the opinion of geologists, has every appearance of a mud deposit.)

June 25.

There was again a considerable mirage or refraction this morning on the rising of the frost; and I hastened to a small hill near our camp that I might behold the transient vision of a distant horizon. The view was most interesting for the high lands on all sides appeared raised as if by magic; and I thus discovered that the hill, previously seen in the west, was connected with a chain which extended round to the north, and that there was higher land to the southward of Macculloch's range; the highest point being to the east, or east-north-east, beyond the hill discovered on the 21 instant. The horizon was lowest towards the west-south-west, for even in the south-west I could perceive a rise sufficient to confine the course of the river to the west-south-west. We proceeded nearly west by south over a soft bed of naked earth, across which, at one place, a well-beaten road of the natives led to the valley on the south and to some watercourse, if not to water itself. After 10 1/4 miles of weary travelling, we encamped on a bend of the Darling, in latitude 31 degrees 31 minutes 20 seconds South.