Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
Bezout Island is of the same formation as Depuch; and so are many of the broken ridges, with bare stony summits, of a dark brown hue, on the main near Cape Lambert, trending South-South-West. A more dreary sterile country can scarcely be seen; yet it still maintains inhabitants. August 26. The weather has been truly strange for the last four days.
We found the anchorage at Depuch Island to form a tolerable port, being protected from the north-east by one of the group, distant about three miles, from which a reef extends to the West-North-West, leaving the mouth of the harbour exposed only between North-West by North and West-North-West.
Depuch Island would seem to be their favourite resort; and we found several of their huts still standing. They were constructed of boughs and twigs fixed in the ground, and joined overhead in a circular shape. Over this was thrown a loose matting of twisted grass.
On this part of the coast grows a peculiar small kind of weed, on which they feed; it was first seen near Depuch Island. I have been informed that the turtles at Ascension Island, when fresh caught, have a large ball of a curious kind of weed in their stomach, and that as soon as it is consumed, they become watery and lose their flavour.
These winds prevented us from making the coast on the eastward of Depuch Island; and as we had failed in getting a supply of provisions at Timor, we were compelled to relinquish the plan of continuing the examination of that part of the coast between the Turtle Islands and Roebuck Bay.
The shore, for nearly fifteen miles from Depuch Island is very low, lined with mangroves, and intersected by creeks, which at high-water, when the tide rises sometimes 18 feet, are of some magnitude, and inundate much of the low land, leaving large portions of it whitened by a salt incrustation.
Several of the natives showed themselves at a distance, and from the numerous fires, it appeared to be a well inhabited part of the continent. Still we saw no appearance of a stream of fresh water; and, though there were several creeks, the only opening of any consequence was forty-three miles from Depuch Island. From its abounding with oysters we named it Oyster Inlet.
The section presented to our view, by the deepest well we sank at the mouth of this valley, consisted of a light kind of mould for six feet, then a layer of sand and shells of the same depth, resting on a coarse soft kind of reddish sandstone. Depuch is the centre of a string of islands which bears the name of Forestier Group, fronting the coast at the distance of from one to three miles.
Fitzmaurice, in a whaleboat, was examining a part of the coast to the eastward of Depuch Island, he entered a creek, which soon, however, became too confined by the mud-banks for them to use the oars. While in this position a shout attracted his attention, and he perceived a party of natives, armed with spears approaching the boat, with evident hostile designs.
It appeared to be flat, with the exception of some isolated rocky hills, of a formation similar to that of Depuch, from 200 to 500 feet in height, and about six miles from the shore. We could also see at a distance of twenty-eight miles a very remarkable pyramidal hill, surmounted by a tower-like piece of rock, bearing from our position South 30 degrees West.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking