which it is the tendency of one common purpose to create among all by whom that purpose is shared, can most readily and most perfectly understand with what deep and mutual interest Lieutenant Grey and myself heard and recounted all that each had done since our parting at the Cape.
Several anecdotes of his adventures confirmed my own experience, and add weight to the opinions I have before expressed. From his description of the tribes his party had encountered, he must have been among a people more advanced in civilization than any we had hitherto seen upon this coast. He found several curious figures,* images, and drawings, generally in colours, upon the sides of caves in the sandstone rock, which, notwithstanding their rude style, yet evince a greater degree of advancement and intelligence than we have been able to find any traces of: at the same time it must be remembered that no certain date absolutely connects these works with the present generation: the dryness of the natural walls upon which they are executed, and the absence of any atmospheric moisture may have, and may yet preserve them for an indefinite period, and their history read aright, may testify not the present condition of the Australian School of Design, but the perfection which it had formerly attained.
(*Footnote. Illustrated in Lieutenant Grey's first Volume.)
LIGHT-COLOURED NATIVES.
Lieutenant Grey too, like ourselves, had seen certain individuals in company with the natives much lighter in colour, and widely differing in figure and physiognomy from the savages by whom they were surrounded; and was inclined to believe that they are descended from Dutch sailors, who at different times, suffering shipwreck upon the coast, have intermarried with its native inhabitants: but as no authentic records can be produced to prove that this portion of the coast was ever visited by Dutch navigators at all, I am still more disposed to believe that these lighter coloured people are Malays, captured from the Trepang fishers, or perhaps voluntarily associating with the Australian, as we know that the Australian not unfrequently abandons his country, and his mode of life, to visit the Indian Archipelago with them.
Before pursuing any further the train of speculation in which my thoughts naturally enough arranged themselves, owing to this meeting with Lieutenant Grey, it may be as well to advert to the circumstances under which he and his party were found by Captain Wickham. It seems that on moving into Port George the Fourth, the ship's guns were fired in order to apprize the wanderers, if within hearing, that friends and aid were at hand. These signals were heard on board the Lynher, and were at once rightly understood to denote the presence of the Beagle. At that time, however, the master of the Lynher--the schooner which Lieutenant Grey had chartered at the Cape, was himself in no small perplexity as to the fate of those he had transported to this lonely coast; and was now growing exceedingly anxious at their non-appearance.
The next morning, the 9th, Captain Wickham started in the yawl for Hanover Bay, in order to prosecute the search at the point where he knew Lieutenant Grey's depot was to be established, and on rounding the headland the first welcome object that met his eye was the schooner at anchor. Captain Wickham learnt from Mr. Browse the master, that the period for which the schooner was chartered having expired, he was only waiting the return of the expedition from motives of humanity. The further care of Lieutenant Grey and his comrades was at once undertaken by Captain Wickham, by whom it was determined, owing to the shortness of provisions on board the Beagle, to proceed to Timor on the return of the boats, in the hope of being able to revictual there, leaving some conspicuous record of his recent visit, with hidden letters declaratory of his proceedings, and promising his speedy return. A party was immediately despatched on shore, and upon the face of the sandstone cliff they painted in characters of gigantic proportion, Beagle Observatory. Letters South-East 52 paces. Of necessity compelled to wait for the boats, Captain Wickham returned to the Beagle.
CAPTAIN WICKHAM'S MEETING WITH LIEUTENANT GREY.
On the morning of the 15th, Lieutenant Grey, accompanied by two of his party, made his appearance upon the shores of Hanover Bay, after a twelve weeks wander in the interior; during which, great hardships, fatigue, and peril had been undergone, and much curious and valuable information collected. Hearing of the proximity of the Beagle, he lost not a moment, but hastened to assure Captain Wickham that the whole party was safe, and spent the evening of the 15th--that previous to my return--among those who sympathized with his sufferings, and heartily welcomed him once more on board. After the first greetings had been exchanged between us, Lieutenant Grey professed the utmost anxiety to hear whether, during our late excursion in the boats, we had discovered the mouth of the Glenelg, the river first seen by him on the 2nd of March. I was of course compelled to inform him that we had found no trace of any river, although the coast from Port George the Fourth to the bottom of Collier Bay, an extent of nearly one hundred miles, had been examined, and with the exception I have already noticed, too closely to admit of mistake.
AN EVENING WITH LIEUTENANT GREY.
The next afternoon I followed Lieutenant Grey round to Hanover Bay, distant twelve miles from the Beagle's anchorage. On the passage I noticed that the remarkable bluff, spoken of by Captain King, had been omitted in the charts, and a low rocky point marked in its place. It was after sunset when we reached the schooner in Hanover Bay; the greater part of the night was devoted to an examination of Lieutenant Grey's plans of his expedition, and the drawings with which various events in it had been illustrated. All these were executed with a finished carefulness one could not have expected to find in works carried on in the bush, and under such varied circumstances of distraction and anxiety as had followed Lieutenant Grey's footsteps: though terribly worn and ill, our opportune arrival, and the feeling that he was among those who could appreciate his exertions, seemed already to operate in his recovery. Upon an old and tattered chart, that had indeed done the state some service, we attempted to settle the probable course of the Glenelg, the knotty question held us for some hours in hot debate; but as in a previous paragraph, I have rendered my more deliberate opinions, I need not here recount the varied topics discussed during that memorable evening: but it may be readily imagined with how swift a flight one hour followed another, while I listened with eager impatience to Lieutenant Grey's account of a country and people till now unknown even to English enterprise. He appears to have seen the same kind of grape-like fruit* that we observed in King's Sound.
(*Footnote. Grey's Australia Volume 1 page 211.)
THE ENCAMPMENT.
I took the boat in the afternoon at high-water to proceed to the encampment, which we were then able to approach within a quarter of a mile. It was situated in the depth of a creek, into which a clear and sparkling stream of fresh water poured its abundance: the shore was formed of enormous granite boulders, which rendered it hardly accessible except at high-water; and the red sandstone platform which is here the nature of the coast, was abruptly intersected by one of those singular valleys which give so marked and so distinctive a characteristic to Australian geology. The separated cliffs approach to within about a quarter of a mile of each other, and then--still preserving their precipitous form--recede some three miles inland, in a southerly direction, and there rejoining, make any passage from Walker's Valley* to the interior a barely practicable feat.
(*Footnote. So named by Lieutenant Grey to commemorate the services rendered by the surgeon of his party in finding a road from it to the interjacent country.)
TIMOR PONIES.
The encampment consisted of a few roofless huts, placed irregularly upon a carpet of rich grass, whereon six Timor ponies were recruiting after the fatigues of a journey in which they appeared to have borne their full share of privation and danger. Their marketable value was indeed but small, and Lieutenant Grey had, therefore, determined to leave them behind in the unrestrained enjoyment of their natural freedom.
My visit was made after the encampment had been finally abandoned, and the thought that a little spot once tenanted by civilized man was about to be yielded to that dreary solitude from which for a while he had rescued it, made the pilgrimage a melancholy one. The scene itself was in strict keeping with such thoughts--the rugged and lofty cliffs which frown down upon the valley--the flitting shadows of the watchful eagles soaring far over my head--and the hoarse murmurs of the tide among the rocky masses on the beach--ail heightened the effects of a picture engraven on my memory too deeply for time itself to efface.
While