Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 | Page 6

dangerous numbers.
The scarcity of fish, and the shallowness of the water did not hold out
much hope that the arm we were tracing would prove of great extent;
still many speculations were hazarded on the termination of it. The
temperature in the night was down to 78 degrees, and the dew
sufficiently heavy to wet the boat's awning through.
CONTINUE EXPLORATION.
Anxious to know how far this piece of water was to carry us into the
untrodden wilds of Australia, we moved off with the first streak of

dawn. Ten miles in a South by East direction brought us to where the
width and depth was not sufficient to induce us to proceed further.
Besides, as we were then only fifteen miles from a bend of the upper
part of the Adelaide, which must receive the drainage of all that part of
the country, it seemed improbable that any other large river existed in
the neighbourhood. Six miles from our furthest, which was about thirty
miles from the entrance, we passed a small island. The banks on either
side of the inlet were, as usual, a thick grove of mangroves, except in
one spot, a mile lower down, where we landed on our return for
observations. This we found to be a low cliffy projection of slate
formation, whilst scattered over the face of the few miles of country,
which we are able to explore, were small bits of quartz; large blocks
also of which protruded occasionally through a light kind of mould.
APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.
The country was a most thirsty-looking level, the low brushwood on
which cracked and snapped as we walked through it, with a brittle
dryness that testified how perfectly parched-up was everything. A
single spark would instantly have wrapped the whole face of the
country in one sheet of fire. Slight blasts of heated withering air, as if
from an oven, would occasionally strike the face as we walked along;
sometimes they were loaded with those peculiar and most agreeable
odours that arise from different kinds of gums. Still the white
eucalyptus and the palm, wore in comparison with the other vegetation,
an extraordinary green appearance, derived probably from the nightly
copious falls of dew, which is the only moisture this part of the
continent receives during the present season. The birds we observed
were common to other parts of the continent, being a few screaming
cockatoos, parrots, and quails, and near the water a small white egret.
There was nothing of interest to recall our memories to this first visit to
a new part of Australia, save a very large ant's nest, measuring twenty
feet in height. This object is always the first that presents itself
whenever my thoughts wander to that locality.
As the boat was not provisioned for the time it would take to explore all
the openings we had discovered, and as the capabilities of Port Darwin

were sufficiently great to require the presence of the ship, I determined
on returning immediately to Shoal Bay.
VISIT FROM THE NATIVES.
During the time we were absent, some of our people who had been on
shore, received a visit from a party of natives, who evinced the most
friendly disposition. This verifies what I have before observed, as to the
remarkable differences of character that exist between many Australian
tribes, though living in the immediate neighbourhood of each other; for,
it will be remembered, that at no great distance we had experienced a
very different reception.
Those people amounted in number, with their families, to twenty-seven,
and came down to our party without any symptoms of hesitation. Both
men and women were finer than those we had seen in Adam Bay. The
tallest male measured five feet eleven, which is three inches less than a
native Flinders measured in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The teeth of these
people were ALL PERFECT, an additional proof that the ceremony of
knocking them out, like others practised in Australia, is very partially
diffused. The rite of circumcision, for instance, is only performed at
King's Sound, on the west side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and near the
head of the Australian bight on the south. Mr. Eyre, who discovered the
existence of the rite on the last-mentioned part of the continent, infers
that the natives of the places I have mentioned must have had some
communication with each other through the interior; but it is possible
that at a distant period of time, circumcision may have been very
generally practised, and that having become gradually disused, the
custom is now only preserved at two or three points, widely separated
from each other. I do not advance this as a theory, but simply as a
suggestion, as there is some difficulty in supposing communication to
have taken