Читать книгу Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria онлайн | страница 11
When I see naked blacks I am very much tempted to give them clothes and tomahawks; but this should not be indulged for I have found from having done so that the more they have got the more they have wanted; and on the other hand I have found that when they got nothing from us they gave us very little of their company and thus rarely gave us any occasion for quarrelling with them.
On the 27th of October Mr. Campbell and the troopers went on shore and collected the horses and took them up as far as Moore's Ponds.
From twenty-two observations, chiefly taken during the day, the temperature has ranged from 69 to 89 degrees and averaged a fraction over 80 degrees. On the 29th we had a few drops of rain which reminded us that we had hardly had any since we started from Brisbane, upwards of a couple of months ago.
My party went in search of the horses yesterday and returned with them today to the place where the ship was aground, a point about fifteen miles in a straight line from the mouth of the river. The horses were so fresh that to hobble them two of the quietest had to be caught to round with them the others up. In the ten days that they had been ashore they had improved more in condition than any horses I have seen do in other parts of Australia in a similar period. To collect the horses they had to go as far as ten miles in a north-west direction, to a saltwater creek which, from Mr. Campbell's report, I believe is the River Nicholson. On the following day I accompanied Mr. Campbell and the troopers to the Nicholson River. The water in it we found not so brackish as that part of the Albert River where we left the ship. I was surprised to find it was not so broad as the river I have just mentioned. We encamped all night on the bank of the river, and near our camp marked a tree (broad arrow before L). On the 30th we returned to the ship after getting the troopers to collect the horses and shoot a quantity of ducks. By counting my steps I made the distance seven miles to a bend of the Albert River near which Moore's Ponds are situated, and two miles and three-quarters further brought us to the point near which the ship had reached. It is a grassy plain between the two rivers, with a few stunted trees upon it; that nearest the Nicholson River is the poorest soil, and the grass at present upon it is very much parched up. A fine large enclosure for stock might be formed by running a fence across from the Albert to the Nicholson River.