Discoveries in Australia (Vol. 1&2). John Lort Stokes

Table of Contents

      Sail from Gage's Road.

       Search for a bank.

       Currents and soundings.

       Houtman's Abrolhos.

       Fruitless search for Ritchie's Reef.

       Indications of a squall.

       Deep sea soundings.

       Atmospheric Temperature.

       Fish.

       A squall.

       Anchor off the mouth of Roebuck Bay.

       A heavy squall.

       Driven from our anchorage.

       Cape Villaret.

       Anchor in Roebuck Bay.

       Excursion on shore.

       Visit from the Natives.

       Mr. Bynoe's account of them.

       A stranger among them.

       Captain Grey's account of an almost white race in Australia.

       Birds, Snakes, and Turtle.

       Move the Ship.

       Miago, and the Black Fellows.

       The wicked men of the North.

       Clouds of Magellan.

       Face of the Country.

       Natives.

       Heat and Sickness.

       Miago on shore.

       Mr. Usborne wounded.

       Failure in Roebuck Bay.

       Native notions.

      CURRENTS AND SOUNDINGS.

      The solemnities of Christmas, and the festal celebration of the New Year, beneath a cloudless sky, and with the thermometer at 90, concluded our first visit to Swan River. We left our anchorage in Gage's Road on Thursday, January 4th, devoting several hours to sounding between Rottnest and the main. We bore away at 4 P.m. to search for a bank said to exist about fifteen miles north from the middle of Rottnest Island, having from twenty to twenty-two fathoms over it. Near the position assigned we certainly shoaled our water from twenty-eight to twenty-four fathoms, but no other indication of a bank was to be found.

      Satisfied that we had now no further reason for delay, we kept away North-West with a fresh southerly wind, and the glad omen of a brilliant sunset.

      January 5.

      We were rather surprised to find by our observation at noon, no indication of a northerly current, though yesterday when becalmed between Rottnest and the main we were drifted to the northward at the rate of nearly two knots per hour. We sounded regularly every four hours, but found no bottom at 200 fathoms: the wind during the morning was light from South-South-West but during the night we had it fresh from South-East.

      January 6.

      We passed, at midnight, within 60 miles of the position assigned in the chart to the low coral group known as Houtman's Abrolhos,* and again sounded unsuccessfully with 200 fathoms.

      (*Footnote. Subsequent observations placed these islands 30 miles more to the eastward than the position there assigned them. Our track, therefore, was really 90 miles from them.)

      We continued steering a northerly course up to the 9th, keeping within from 60 to 80 miles distance of the coast, and repeating our deep-sea soundings every six hours without success.

      INDICATIONS OF A SQUALL.

      The wind during each day was moderate from the South-South-West and South by West, freshening during the night from South, and South by East; a heavy swell was its constant companion, and the barometer fell to 29.75. On the morning of the 9th, being in the parallel of North-west Cape, our course was altered to North-East by East; it blew hard during the night, and we had a disagreeable sea; but, as usual, it moderated again towards the morning.

      We had shaped a course to make a reef in latitude 20 degrees 17 minutes, and named after its discoverer, Lieutenant Ritchie, R.N.; but owing to its being situated, as we afterwards found, half a degree to the eastward of its assigned position in the charts, we did not see it.

      At 4 A.m., and with 195 fathoms, we reached a bottom of sand, broken shells, and coral, being then about 80 miles North-North-East from Tremouille Island, the nearest land. Steering East by North ½ North for 31 miles, brought us to our noon position in latitude 19 degrees 20 minutes South, longitude 116 degrees 16 minutes East, and into a depth of 120 fathoms, with the same kind of bottoms. South-South-West, 17 miles from our morning position, Captain King had 83 and 85 fathoms; from this we may suppose the edge of the bank of soundings, extending off this part of the coast, to be very steep. These soundings, together with those of Captain King, as above, may give some idea of the nature and extent of this bank, which seems to be a continuation of the flat extending North-North-East 40 miles, connecting Barrow and Tremouille Islands with the main: its outer edge being kept heaped up thus steeply by the constant action of the current sweeping round the North-west Cape.

      DEEP SEA SOUNDINGS.

      We continued steering East and by North ½ North, and at sunset, 14 miles from our noon position, the water had deepened to 145 fathoms, bottom a fine white sand and powdered shells. Before we were 50 miles from our noon position, we could find no bottom with 200 fathoms.

      January 12.

      We made but slow progress during the night, and felt delay the more tedious from the eager anxiety with which we desired sight of the land where our duties were to begin in earnest. We were not successful with our soundings till 6 P.m., when we had the same kind of bottom as before described, with 117 fathoms: 15 miles East by North ½ North from our noon position, which was 220 miles West by South from Roebuck Bay: 30 miles in the same direction from our noon position, we shoaled our water to 85 fathoms, the ground retaining the same distinctive character. We had the wind from South-West to South-East during the afternoon, but at 6 P.m. it chopped round to North-North-West, when, too, for the first time, we perceived lightning to the South-East--Barometer 29.92; thermometer 85.

      January 13.

      The preceding indications of the coming squall, which had given us full time for preparation, were realized about one o'clock this morning, when it reached us, though only moderately, from South-East. It was preceded by the rise and rapid advance of a black cloud in that quarter, just as Captain King has described.

      ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE.

      At noon we were in latitude 18 degrees 26 minutes South, longitude 119 degrees 18 minutes East, and in soundings of 75 fathoms, fine white sand, broken shells, and fragments of dead coral. There was only a slight variation in the atmospheric temperature of two degrees during the twenty-four hours, the highest in the day being 85, and the lowest at night 83. The water was very smooth, but as night approached it thundered and lightened heavily and vividly, and most of us noticed and suffered from a particularly oppressive and overpowering state of the atmosphere, which the heat indicated by the thermometer was by no means sufficiently intense to account for.

      January 14.

      During the last twenty-four hours we had made but 51 miles progress in the direction of Roebuck Bay; our noon observations placed us in latitude 18 degrees 25 minutes South, longitude 120 degrees 13 minutes East, being about 80 miles from the nearest land. We obtained soundings at 72 fathoms, yellow sand and broken shells. During the afternoon, it being nearly a calm, we found ourselves surrounded by quantities of fish, about the size of the mackerel, and apparently in pursuit of a number of small and almost transparent members of the finny tribe, not larger than the minnow.

      We sounded at sunset, and found bottom at 52 fathoms, which shoaled by half-past ten to 39. The circumstance, however, occasioned no surprise, as we had run South-South-East 25 miles, in a direct line for that low portion of the coast from which the flat we were running over extends.

      The first part of the night we had the wind at North-North-East, the breeze steady, and the water