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Updated: June 25, 2025
Where the mangroves ceased, and where high ground and a beaten runway came down to the water's edge, Van Horn motioned the rowers to back water and lay on their oars. High palms and lofty, wide-branched trees rose above the jungle at this spot, and the runway showed like the entrance of a tunnel into the dense, green wall of tropical vegetation.
As we descended, the left bank of the river was entirely occupied with cocos; and the contrast between them and the mangroves on the right was made all the more striking by the afternoon sun, which, as it sank behind the forest, left the mangrove wall in black shadow, while it bathed the palm-groves opposite with yellow light.
The tide being now well on the ebb, the fish stopped biting, perhaps driven away by the sharks, and we sailed down to the inlet, where there is a long sandy beach fringed with mangroves: behind these, low hillocks of sand covered with saw-palmetto extend across to the ocean, perhaps half a mile; and here is an expanse of sandy beach some hundreds of yards in width at low tide, hard and smooth, so that one could drive from St.
On their way up from Townsville, they had seen smoke-signals thrown up from the mangroves at the mouth of the Herbert River, and these were answered both from the range behind Cardwell, and from Hinchinbrook, so it was evident there were blacks on the island, though most likely concealed in some of the hidden valleys, which, from the volcanic nature of the country, were so plentiful, and so difficult to find.
The eastern fork, known as the Páná, is the drain of a large and branchy lagoon, brackish water, bitumen-coloured or brassy-yellow, with poisonous vegetation, and bounded by mangroves abounding in tannin. These water-forests grow differently from the red and white rhizophores of Eastern Africa. We shall again be ferried over the upper part of the western mouth.
The screw shook the vessel as it spun hard-astern, and the bows began to swing. It was, however, too late; the forecastle would not clear the mangroves, and Kit knew the water was deep among their roots. Shouting to Adam, he seized the rails and waited for the shock. It came, for there was a crash, and a noise of branches breaking. The steamer rolled, recoiled, and forged on into the forest.
All the gentlemen agreed that this was the best bird they had eaten since they left England; and in honour of it they called the inlet Bustard Bay. Upon the mud banks, and under the mangroves, were innumerable oysters of various kinds, and among others the hammer oyster, with a large proportion of small pearl oysters.
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.
In the higher regions, near the foot-hills, where the big river rises, there used to be a great coffee district, healthy and populous; but alas! malaria and jungle fever lie crouching upon its lower banks like a beast of prey, ready to pounce upon the passing and incautious traveler, while hungry, wide-jawed crocodiles lie half-concealed in the low mangroves, ready to snap up any dog or young native child which thoughtlessly approaches their domain.
On either side were dense woods of mangroves, appearing to grow directly out of the water, while on our starboard hand was a glittering sandbank, and stretching across the river appeared a line of white breakers, which I fancied must completely bar our ingress. David came on deck at that moment. I pointed them out to him. "Surely we cannot be going in there?" he said.
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