I Wished Very Much To Induce Them To Become Our Guides; And The
Two Principal Men, Eooanberry And Minorelli, Promised To Accompany Us,
But They Afterwards Changed Their Minds.
My first object was to find good water, and our sable friends guided us
with the greatest care, pointing out to us the most shady road, to some
wells surrounded with ferns, which were situated in some tea-tree hollows
at the confines of the plains and the forest.
These wells, however, were
so small that our horses could not approach to drink, so that we had to
go to another set of wells; where I was obliged to stop, as one of our
horses refused to go any farther. This place was about four miles E.N.E.
from our last camp. The wells were about six or eight feet deep, and dug
through a sandy clay to a stiff bed of clay, on which the water
collected. It would appear that the stiff clay of the plains had been
covered by the sandy detritus of the ridges, from which the water slowly
drained to the wells. It was evident, from the pains which the natives
had taken in digging them, that the supply of fresh water was very
precarious. In many instances, however, I observed that they had been
induced to do so, simply by the want of surface water in the immediate
neighbourhood of places where they obtained their principal supply of
food. This was particularly the case near the sea-coast, where no surface
water is found; whilst the various fish, and even vegetable productions,
attract the natives, who will, in such a case, even contract the habit of
going the longest possible time without water, or, at least, with very
little, as is well shown in Mr. Eyre's journey round the Australian
Bight. We had to water our horses and the bullock with the stew pot; and
had to hobble the latter, to prevent his straying, and attacking the
natives.
The natives were remarkably kind and attentive, and offered us the rind
of the rose-coloured Eugenia apple, the cabbage of the Seaforthia palm, a
fruit which I did not know, and the nut-like swelling of the rhizoma of
either a grass or a sedge. The last had a sweet taste, was very mealy and
nourishing, and the best article of the food of the natives we had yet
tasted. They called it "Allamurr" (the natives of Port Essington,
"Murnatt"), and were extremely fond of it. The plant grew in depressions
of the plains, where the boys and young men were occupied the whole day
in digging for it. The women went in search of other food; either to the
sea-coast to collect shell-fish, - and many were the broad paths which led
across the plains from the forest land to the salt-water - or to the
brushes to gather the fruits of the season, and the cabbage of the palms.
The men armed with a wommala, and with a bundle of goose spears, made of
a strong reed or bamboo (?), gave up their time to hunting.
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