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Updated: May 31, 2025
I was anxious to gain a view of the distant country to the N.W., and to ascertain the geological character of the hills themselves. M'Leay, Fraser, and myself left the camp early in the morning of the 19th, on our way to them. Crossing the sand hills, we likewise passed a creek, and, from the flooded or alluvial tracks, got on an elevated sandy country, in which we found a beautiful grevillia.
We again landed on the south side of the channel, patiently to await the high water. M'Leay, myself, and Fraser, ascended the hills, and went to the opposite side to ascertain the course of the channel, for immediately above us it turned south round the hills. We there found that we were on a narrow tongue of land.
They had unexpectedly arrived at a part of the interior similar to one they had held in dread, and conjured up a thousand difficulties and privations. I desired the man to recall Mr. M'Leay; and, after gaining the wood, moved outside of it at right angles to my former course, and reached the river, after a day of severe toil and exposure, at half-past five.
Every object elicited some remark from the men, and I was sorry to find they reckoned with certainty on seeing Harris at the depot, as I knew they would be proportionally depressed in spirits if disappointed. However, I promised Clayton a good repast as soon as we should see him. I had walked out with M'Leay a short distance from the river, and had taken the dogs.
This gave M'Leay and myself an opportunity of ascending Pouni, for the purpose of taking bearings; and how ever warm the exertion of the ascent made us, the view from the summit of the hill sufficiently repaid us, and the cool breeze that struck it, although imperceptible in the forest below, soon dried the perspiration from our brows.
I therefore, ran the boat ashore, and landed with M'Leay amidst the smaller party of natives, wholly unarmed, and having directed the men to keep at a little distance from the bank. Fortunately, what I anticipated was brought about by the stratagem to which I had had recourse. The blacks no sooner observed that we had landed, than curiosity took place of anger.
This work was, as may be imagined, most laborious, and the men at length became much exhausted. They would not, however, give up the search for the still head, more especially after M'Leay, in diving, had descended upon it.
It had been swept considerably below the place at which M'Leay had dived, or we should most probably have found it sooner. With its recovery, all our fatigues were at once forgotten, and I ordered the breakfast to be got ready preparatory to our reloading the skiff. Fraser and Mulholland, who had left the camp at daylight, had not yet returned.
I shall not forget the anxiety he expressed, and the regret he felt on the occasion; nor do I think M'Leay recovered the shock this unlucky accident gave him for two or three days, or until the novelty of other scenes drove it from his recollection. We landed close to the haunt of a small tribe of natives, who came to us with the most perfect confidence, and assisted the men in their occupations.
With a view to examine the plain opposite to us, I directed our horses to be taken across the river early in the morning, and after breakfast, M'Leay and I swam across after them. We found the current strong, and could not keep a direct line over the channel, but were carried below the place at which we plunged in.
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