There is no other safe pa.s.sage into the bay than that between the islands in the entrance and Cape Grey; which cape is remarkable for the round hummock on its extremity, and lies in lat.i.tude 13 1" south, and longitude 136 42" east. The western branch of the bay appeared to be shallow, and not well sheltered, so that I did not go up it to sound; but in the eastern branch, which is near three miles wide, there is from 4 to 3 fathoms on blue mud, up to within three-quarters of a mile of a rocky point at the head; and the rocks of Point Alexander may there be nearly, if not altogether brought to shut on with those of Cape Grey. Wood for fuel was plentiful every where, and there was no difficulty in procuring water from the ponds and holes in the low, sandy land near the sh.o.r.e of Point Alexander; but from May to December, I doubt whether they would not all be dried up, as well as the small streams which descended from Mount Caledon. Our success with the seine was very moderate, more sea slugs, or what we called sea cuc.u.mbers from their shape, being brought on sh.o.r.e than fish; these differed from what we had seen on the reefs of the East Coast, in being of a more firm consistence, and of a light brown or grey, instead of a black colour: when these slugs were pressed with the foot, they threw out a stream of water to some distance.
The country round Caledon Bay, especially at the heads of the two branches, is generally low land; Mount Caledon and the hills of the south side are of granite, and this stone is found in some other parts; but at Point Alexander the basis is a sand stone, more or less impregnated with iron, and at Point Middle it is almost iron ore. A piece of this last stone carried the needle of the theodolite entirely round; yet the bearings taken from thence did not show any difference from those at Mount Caledon, and from those upon Point Alexander, taken from a hillock of sea sand, they did not differ more than half a degree.
So far as our examination went the soil is poor, being either sandy or stony, with a small mixture in some places of vegetable earth; notwithstanding which both the gra.s.s and wood were luxuriant, owing to the abundance of rain which had lately fallen, and to the warmth of the climate: in the dry season, I should judge the country would be almost burnt up. The _casuarina_ was plentiful in the sandy places, and the _eucalyptus_ amongst the rocks, where it reached a tolerable size; the wild nutmeg was found upon Point Middle, and there alone; our apple, the new species of _eugenia_, grew on Point Alexander and elsewhere, and also a few other plants bearing small fruits of little use. Foot marks of the kangaroo were seen in different places, but none of the animals, nor indeed any quadruped; and birds seemed to be rare, both in the woods and on the sh.o.r.es.
The natives of Caledon Bay are the same race of men as those of Port Jackson and King George"s Sound, places at nearly the two opposite extremities of Terra Australis;* in personal appearance they were behind some tribes we had seen, but the difference did not go beyond what a less abundant supply of food might produce. All those who came to the tents had lost the upper front tooth on the left side, whereas at Port Jackson it is the right tooth which is knocked out at the age of p.u.b.erty; whether the women undergo the same operation, contrary to the usage at Port Jackson, we had no opportunity of knowing, having seen only one female, and that at a distance. This girl wore a small piece of bark, in guise of a fig leaf, which was the sole approximation to clothing seen among them.
Above the elbow the men usually wore a bandage of net work, in which was stuck a short piece of strong gra.s.s, called _tomo_, and used as a tooth pick; but the most remarkable circ.u.mstance in their persons was, that the whole of them appeared to have undergone the Jewish and Mahometan rite of circ.u.mcision. The same thing was before noticed in a native of Isle Woodah, and in two at Wellesley"s Islands; it would seem, therefore, to be general on the west side of the Gulph of Carpentaria; but with what view it may be done, or whence the custom were received, it is not in my power to state. No such practice was found on the South or East Coasts, nor was it observed in the natives of the islands in Torres" Strait, who however, go naked as the Australians.
[* In Van Diemen"s Land, according to captain Cook and succeeding visitors, and on the North-west Coast, according to Dampier, the inhabitants have woolly hair; in which particular they are different from the race above mentioned. Which of them may be aborigines can be only conjectured, until the interior of the new continent shall be explored.]
No other weapons than spears were seen amongst these people; but they were not unacquainted with bows and arrows. It is probable that they have bark canoes, though none were seen, for several trees were found stripped, as if for that purpose; yet when Bongaree made them a present of the canoe brought from Blue-mud Bay, they expressed very little pleasure at the gift, and did not seem to know how to repair it.
That this bay had before received the visits of some strangers, was evinced by the knowledge which the natives had of fire arms; they imitated the act of shooting when we first landed, and when a musket was fired at their request, were not much alarmed. A quant.i.ty of posts was lying near the water, which had been evidently cut with iron instruments; and when we inquired of the inhabitants concerning them, they imitated with their hands the motion of an axe cutting down a tree, and then stopping, exclaimed _Poo!_ Whence we understood that the people who cut the wood had fire arms. This was all that could be learned from the natives; but from the bamboos and part.i.tions of frame work found here, similar to those at Pellew"s Group, they were doubtless the same Asiatic nation, if not the same individuals, of whom so many traces had been seen all the way from the head of the gulph. The propensity shown by the natives to steal, especially our axes, so contrary to all I have known and heard of their countrymen, is not only a proof that they had been previously visited by people possessing iron implements, but from their audacity it would appear, that the effect of fire arms was either not very certain in the hands of the strangers, or had seldom been resorted to in the punishment of aggression; and from the circ.u.mstance of the Indians bringing us a few berries, as a recompense for the last stolen axe, it should seem that they had been accustomed to make very easy atonements for their thefts. I have some hope that those who may follow us will not be robbed, at least with so much effrontery; and at the same time, that the inhabitants of Caledon Bay will not avoid, but be desirous of further communication with Europeans.
I do not know that the language at any two parts of Terra Australis, however near, has been found to be entirely the same; for even at Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, not only the dialect, but many words are radically different;* and this confirms one part of an observation, the truth of which seems to be generally admitted: that although similarity of language in two nations proves their origin to be the same, yet dissimilarity of language is no proof of the contrary position. The language of Caledon Bay may therefore be totally different to what is spoken on the East and South Coasts, and yet the inhabitants have one common origin; but I do not think that the language is absolutely and wholly different, though it certainly was no better understood by Bongaree than by ourselves. In three instances I found a similarity: the personal p.r.o.noun of Port Jackson, _gni-a_ (I), was used here, and apparently in the same sense; when inquiry was made after the axe, the natives replied "_Yehangeree py_," making signs of beating; and _py_ signifies to beat, in the Port-Jackson language; the third instance was of the lad Woga calling to Bongaree in the boat, which after he had done several times without being answered, he became angry, and exclaimed _Bongaree-gah!_ in a vehement manner, as Bongaree himself would have done in a similar case. For the following list of words I am princ.i.p.ally indebted to Mr. Brown, naturalist to the expedition; who remarked that the word here for eye was very nearly the same with that used, both at King George"s Sound and Port Jackson, to express the same organ.
[* This multiplicity of tongues in the same country presents an extraordinary contrast with the _islands_ in the Great Ocean, where, from the Sandwich Isles near the northern tropic, to the furthest extremity of New Zeeland in 47 south, the language is almost every where the same; and with so little difference of dialect, that the several inhabitants have not much difficulty to understand each other.]
[LIST OF ENGLISH WORDS AND THOSE USED BY THE PEOPLE AT CALEDON BAY TO EXPRESS THE SAME IDEA.--not included in ebook.]
In collecting the words some errors may possibly have been made, either from misunderstanding the natives or from their deceiving us intentionally; for after the trick put upon Mons. Labillardiere at the Friendly Islands, in the words given him for the high numerals, they are always to be suspected.
During the week we remained in Caledon Bay, the following astronomical observations were taken.
_Lat.i.tude_ from three observations to the north and south, taken in a boat astern of the ship and reduced to the tents on Point Alexander, 12 47" 16" S.
_Longitude_ from twelve sets of distances of stars east and west of the moon, taken on a stand by lieut. Flinders, and of which the individual results are given in Table VI. of the Appendix No. I, 136 35" 47.5" E.
The rates of the time keepers were found from morning"s alt.i.tudes of the sun in an artificial horizon, between Feb. 3 and 8; and the means, with the errors from mean Greenwich time at noon there on the 9th, were as under:
Earnshaw"s No. 543, slow 2h 41" 0.91" and losing 16.53" per day.
Earnshaw"s No. 520, slow 2h 27" 19.55" and losing 30.83" per day.
No. 520 had been accidentally let down in Blue-mud Bay, whence its longitude is not now noticed; that given by No. 543 on Feb. 3, with the rate from Observation Island, was 136 43" 3.5", or 7"16" greater than the lunars. Were a rate used, equally accelerated from that of Observation Island to what was found in Caledon Bay, the longitude would be 0" 55" less than the lunars; but during the twelve days occupied in circ.u.mnavigating Groote Eylandt, it was proved that this time keeper was keeping its former rate, and consequently the acceleration cannot here be admitted.
In constructing the chart of the coast and islands between Pellew"s Group and Caledon Bay, a time keeper was required only in laying down the south and east sides of Groote Eylandt, and the main coast up to Cape Barrow; in all the remaining parts the longitude was preserved by a connected chain of bearings, mostly taken on sh.o.r.e. The time-keeper reckoning from Observation Island, and that by survey worked back from the fixed point in Caledon Bay, meet each other on Jan. 5 p.m. at Connexion Island; and the difference was there found to be 2" 41", which the time keeper gave more to the east. This may have arisen from Observation Island being laid down in a longitude too great by that quant.i.ty, or Caledon Bay too little, or from a small error in each; but the time keeper was not thought ent.i.tled to such perfect confidence, as to cause an alteration to be made in these stations. The difference of 2" 41" is therefore corrected by applying -16.3" of longitude per day to the time keeper, from Observation to Connexion Island; Groote Eylandt is laid down mostly from the time keeper, with the fixed correction -2" 41" all round; and from thence to Caledon Bay the chart is constructed from bearings and observed lat.i.tudes.
The mean _dip_ of the south end of the needle, observed at the tents, was 36 28".
_Variation_ of the theodolite, 2 20" E.
On board the ship, at anchor off the south-west side of the inner island at the entrance, the variation from three compa.s.ses, with the head N. W.
by W., was 2 26"; by the surveying compa.s.s alone, 2 46" east, and this, which I consider to be the best, would be, corrected, 1 14" E.
At my different stations on sh.o.r.e, the variation seemed to be between 2 and 2 20" east; except on the north-east end of the outer island in the entrance, where it appeared to be no more than 1 30".
The rise of _tide_ in Caledon Bay was so small, that nothing certain could be determined on board, either upon the quant.i.ty or the time; but it appeared from the observations of lieutenant Fowler at the tents, that there were two tides in the day, the rise of which varied from 3 feet 10, to 4 feet 10 inches; and that the time of high water took place at _nine hours and a half after_ the moon pa.s.sed over and under the meridian.
On board the ship, the range of the thermometer was from 83 to 87, nearly as it had been from first entering the Gulph of Carpentaria; and on sh.o.r.e it was probably 10 higher. Several of our people were ill of diarrhoeas at this time, accompanied with some fever, which was attributed by the surgeon to the heat and the moist state of the atmosphere; for since December, when the north-west monsoon began, not many days had pa.s.sed without rain, and thunder squalls were frequent.
Exposing the head uncovered to the sun, more especially if engaged in strong exercise, was proved to be very dangerous here; I lost one man in Blue-mud Bay from a want of due precaution in this particular, and at this place two others very narrowly escaped. Musketoes were numerous and exceedingly troublesome on sh.o.r.e, as also the black flies; but no venemous reptiles were seen in our limited excursions round Caledon Bay.
The mercury in the barometer stood between 29.90 and 29.95 inches, in the rainy weather with strong winds from the eastward; but with fine weather and variable winds, more especially from the south and westward, it descended to 29.80 inches.
CHAPTER IX.
Departure from Caledon Bay.
Cape Arnhem.
Melville Bay.
Cape Wilberforce, and Bromby"s Isles.
The English Company"s Islands: meeting there with vessels from Maca.s.sar.
Arnhem Bay.
The Wessel"s Islands.
Further examination of the North Coast postponed.
Arrival at Coepang Bay, in Timor.
Remarks and astronomical observations.
[NORTH COAST. GULPH OF CARPENTARIA.]
THURSDAY 10 FEBRUARY 1803
(Atlas, Plate XV.)
At daylight in the morning of Feb. 10, we sailed down Caledon Bay, and steered eastward along the south side of the islands lying in the entrance. In pa.s.sing the outer island I landed with the botanical gentlemen, and took bearings from a small elevation on its north-east end, which materially a.s.sisted in fixing the positions of the northern islets, and extending the survey onward along the coast.
Cape Grey, the hummock on it, bore S. 27 13" W.
Mount Alexander, N. 11 45 W.
Furthest extreme northward, N. 13 43 E.
This outer island is nearly a mile long, E. by N. and W. by S., and mostly dest.i.tute of wood; but one valley was thickly covered, and so interlaced with vines as to be impenetrable. The lat.i.tude observed to the north and south, at the sandy west point, was 12 52" 59" south.
We re-joined the ship at one o"clock, and steered northward, without side of the islets and rocks which lie scattered along the sh.o.r.e as far as Mount Alexander. Amongst these are three near to each other, with hummocks upon them, which, as in many points of view they seem to make but one island, may probably have been meant by the northernmost of the three isles in the Dutch chart.
The wind had been from the southward, but on closing in with the coast at Mount Alexander it came from N. W. by N., and edged us off a little from the land. At sunset the sh.o.r.e was three or four miles distant, and
Mount Alexander bore S. 53 W.
A hummock at the furthest extreme, N. 9 E.
We steered on till eight o"clock, and then anch.o.r.ed in 21 fathoms, blue mud. At daylight [FRIDAY 11 FEBRUARY 1803], the sh.o.r.e was found to be distant four or five miles; the furthest part then seen was near the eastern extremity of Arnhem"s Land, and this having no name in the Dutch chart, is called CAPE ARNHEM.
Mount Alexander was set at S. 48 W.
Two rocks under the sh.o.r.e, dist. 5 or 6 miles, N. 15 W.
Cape Arnhem, rising land within the extremity, N. 11 W.