the vegetation of this country, so far as we can judge, seems to owe its principal nourishment and support.
VISITED BY NATIVES.
January 25.
The forenoon was devoted to the examination of this excellent anchorage, and a party was also despatched to haul the seine. On landing they were met by a party of natives, who saluted them in a manner which strikingly resembled the eastern mode. They had no weapon, save one kiley or boomerang, and bowed down until they almost kissed the water.
CONDUCT OF MIAGO.
Their speech was shrill and quick, perfectly unintelligible to our friend Miago, who seemed greatly in fear of them: they seemed astonished to find one apparently of their own clime, complexion, and degree in company with the white strangers, who must have seemed to them a different race of beings; nor was their wonder at all abated when Miago threw open his shirt, and showed them his breast curiously scarred after their fashion--for this custom of cutting stripes upon the body, as other savages tattoo it, by way of ornament, seems universally to prevail throughout Australia--as a convincing evidence that he, though now the associate of the white man, belonged to the same country as themselves. When Miago had, in some degree, recovered from his alarm--and their want of all weapons no doubt tended to reassure him more than anything else, he very sagaciously addressed them in English; shaking hands and saying, "How do you do?" and then began to imitate their various actions, and mimic their language, and so perfectly did he succeed that one of our party could not be persuaded but that he really understood them; though for this suspicion I am convinced there was in truth no foundation. In general appearance this tribe differed but little from those we had previously seen. They wore their hair straight, and tied behind in a rude semblance of the modern queue; their beards were long, and two or three among them were daubed with a kind of black ochre. All of them had lost one of the front teeth, and several one finger joint;* in this particular they differed from the natives seen in Roebuck Bay, amongst whom the practice of this mutilation did not prevail. They were, I think, travelling to the southward, at the time they fell in with us, for they had no females among the party, by whom they are usually at other times accompanied. The circumstance of their being unarmed may seem to militate against the supposition that they were travelling, but it is to be borne in mind that these people universally consider the absence of offensive weapons as the surest test of peaceful intentions, and would therefore, if they desired to maintain a friendly footing with the newcomers, most probably deposit their arms in some place of concealment before they made themselves visible.
(*Footnote. A similar custom was noticed by Captain Cook at the Sandwich Islands, where it was regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa, to avert his anger; and not to express, as the same mutilation does in the Friendly Islands, grief for the loss of a friend.)
NATIVE SMOKES.
The coast seems pretty thickly populated between Roebuck and Beagle Bays; as the smoke from native fires was constantly to be seen, but in all cases these signs of human existence were confined to the neighbourhood of the sea. The fishing proved unsuccessful, so we were fain to content ourselves without the promised addition to our evening meal. We found the tide rise here 18 feet.
In the afternoon we reached another anchorage, some ten miles further to the North-East. The coast along which we sailed within the distance of two miles, was chiefly remarkable for its tall, dark-looking cliffs, with here and there a small sandy bay intervening. We anchored under Point Emeriau, so named by Captain Baudin, by whom it was mistaken for an island; its tall, white cliffs, springing from and guarded by a base and ledges of black rock, and tinged with red towards their summits, render it a point not easily to be mistaken or forgotten by any who have once seen it. Beyond this the coast curved away to the eastward, forming a bight about eleven miles in length.
January 26.
Leaving our anchorage at daylight, we passed the north point of the bight just mentioned soon after noon; it is a low black rugged cliffy point, called Borda by the French, having a much more weather-beaten appearance than would have been anticipated in this latitude. Behind it the country rose obliquely, the horizon terminating in an inconsiderable, undulatory, and well-wooded elevation.
CAPE LEVEQUE.
We passed another bight in the afternoon, the shores of which were low and rocky, with a mangrove creek in its depth: from this bight the coast becomes almost straight, the line being hardly broken by rocky points and shallow sandy bays, to Cape Leveque, on the North-East side of which we found an indifferent anchorage just before sunset. Cape Leveque is a red cliffy point some sixty feet in height, with an islet of the same character lying close off it. The latter bore from our anchorage in 5 fathoms, South 56 degrees West 2 miles, and 4½ West 20 degrees South from the entrance point of the inviting opening, we were now about to explore, with an interest rather stimulated than decreased by the want of success that attended our examination of Roebuck Bay.
POINT SWAN.
This point was named by Captain King, Point Swan, in honour of Captain Swan of the Cygnet, under whom Dampier first discovered it; and was an appropriate tribute of respect and admiration, from one distinguished no less than Dampier himself, by the possession of those qualities of firmness, patience, judgment and perseverance, which make up the character of the scientific and adventurous navigator, to him by whom he had been preceded in Australian discovery. The country between Point Swan and Cape Leveque has a very sandy and barren aspect; the hillocks near the latter partook of its prevailing red colour.
TIDE-RACES.
January 27.
We proceeded this morning in the direction of Point Swan, and remarked, as we approached it, the heavy tide-race which used Captain King so roughly, and which subsequent surveying operations enabled us to account for, from great irregularity in the bottom, changing almost at once from 40 to 17 fathoms. We waited, having no wish to experience the full effect of the current, for slack water, and thus passed round it quietly enough; we anchored in a small bight, South 20 degrees West 1½ miles from Point Swan, in seven fathoms, which, as we rightly conjectured, would leave us in three, at low-water.*
(*Footnote. The following is Captain King's graphic account of his encounter with this race: "On my way towards Point Swan, we saw from the masthead a line of strong tide ripplings, extending from the Point in a North-West by West direction, within which we at first attempted to pass; but finding they were connected to the Point, hauled up to steer through them where they seemed to be the least dangerous. As we approached, the noise was terrific; and although we were not more than two minutes amongst the breakers, yet the shocks of the sea were so violent, as to make us fearful for the safety of our masts. A smaller vessel would perhaps have been swamped; for although the sea was in other parts quite smooth, and the wind light, yet the water broke over the bows, and strained the brig considerably.")
As we had now arrived at the point from which we anticipated carrying on our most important operations, it became of paramount interest to know whether we could rely for that indispensable article, fresh water, upon the resources of the wild and barbarous shores. The vast extent of country; the delightful verdure which clothed great portions of it; nay, even the evidences of a people living upon its shores, would, under any other circumstances, and on any other coast, have been deemed conclusively to decide this point in the affirmative: but the voyager knows, from the best authority, that upon the coasts, and within the heart of Australia, nature seems to delight in contradiction, and that she is more than usually capricious with respect to the supply of what is ordinarily her most common, as it is ever one of her most precious gifts. A few wretched mud-holes might serve for a time to content the savages trained to privation from their earliest infancy, but for ourselves it was clear, either that a reasonable supply of fresh water must be found here, or we must not calculate upon remaining beyond the time which would leave us sufficient to proceed to Hanover Bay, where this most needful commodity was, upon the authority of Captain King, to be found.
SEARCH FOR WATER.
No sooner, therefore, was the Beagle properly secured in her new berth, than a party was despatched in the boats to commence a search for water, and to fix upon a spot for carrying on the necessary observations: scarcely, however, had we pushed off from alongside, before