Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
In August 1844, Captain Sturt passed up the Murray to explore the country north-west of the Darling, and whilst at Moorunde, on his route, was supplied with a Moorunde boy to accompany his party to track stock, and also with a native of the Rufus named And-buck, to go as guide and interpreter to the Darling.
"The eye of every native along the banks had been fixed upon that noble flag, at all times a beautiful object," says Captain Sturt, "and to them a novel one, as it waved over us in the heart of a desert.
It has been a common and a popular theory to imagine the existence of an inland sea, and this theory has been strengthened and confirmed by the opinion of so talented, so experienced, and so enterprising a traveller as my friend Captain Sturt, in its favour.
I was unable to get the tribal names, but this, for the purposes of explanation only, is unnecessary. The aboriginals in question belong to the Eastern district of Kimberley generally, and more particularly to the Sturt Creek. These natives are descended from eight original couples, who have given their names to the eight classes into which the tribe is now divided.
I had ever been a delighted student of the narratives of voyages and discoveries, from Robinson Crusoe to Anson and Cook, and the exploits on land in the brilliant accounts given by Sturt, Mitchell, Eyre, Grey, Leichhardt, and Kennedy, constantly excited my imagination, as my own travels may do that of future rovers, and continually spurred me on to emulate them in the pursuit they had so eminently graced.
Amongst some native prisoners brought in from the Sturt I saw a primitive wooden horn, on which a sort of blast could be blown. No doubt this, too, has its place in their performances. I am told they keep up these corroborees as long as three days and nights, though certainly not dancing all the time. Probably the stick clapping is kept up by relays of performers.
One very high peak in this range I named Mount Sturt, after my friend Captain Sturt; it bore from our present camp E. 10 degrees N. and had been previously seen from the summit of Mount Hall. September 20.
On the 15th Kennedy noticed with anxiety that the valley of the river certainly fell to the south, and that ever since it had turned from its northerly course, it was making for the point where Sturt turned back on Cooper's Creek.
At length they were glad to leave this dismal region and strike to the west through a flat and monotonous district where the shells and claws of crayfish told of frequent inundations. Through this plain there flowed a river, which Sturt called the Darling, in honour of the Governor.
G. Hamilton, Esq. Capt. Sturt, Ass. Com. Ephraim Howe, Esq. John Walker, Esq.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking