Experiences in Kimberley District.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 158, 26 June 1886, Page 1

Experiences in Kimberley District.

The gold fields discovered nearly twenty years ago in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin have found employment for a few European miners, and for numbers of Chinese, ever since, but have never proved sniKciently attractive to create any excitement in the southern colonies. The gold which has been recently found in the Kimberley district, lying to the west of the Old River and south of Cambridge Gulf, has had a more agitating effect, and it later accounts confirm the statements which have been published relative to the probable extent of auriferous country and its richness, it is possible that some faint return of the gold fevers so common over thirty years back may be witnested amongst us. The Kimberley field is situated in the colony of Western Australia, but extends close to the bounJary of the northern territory of South Australia — how Irish these names sound— and ia sufficiently tar north to have for its nearest ocean outlet, Cambridge Gulf, which liea about 250 miles south-west of Port Darwin. This portion of our coast line was first explored by Captain King in the year 1819. Two years previously an expedition under his command had been resolved upon, iinder the joint direction of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for the colonies. Acting under their in structions Captain King reached Sydney, and purchased a teak built cutter named the Mermaid, of S4 tons burden, which he titted out for the purpose, his crew consisting of twelve men and two boys, officered by xiwo mates, one of whom, Mr Roe, subsequently became Surveyor-General of South Australia, and was well known in connection with Australian inland exploration. Cap tain King was also accompanied by Mr Allen Cunningham, the celebrated botanist, whoee monument is a conspicuous object in the Sydney Botanic Gardens. The Mermaid sailed on her first voyage on 22nd December, 1818, proceeding to her destination by way of these southern coasts, which were then tenantless, and calling at Oyster Harbour, King George's Sound, to obtain tvood and water. This place had been visited by Flinders 16 years before, and his vea9el had stayed sufficiently Jong to enable him to sow some seed and plant a garden, but all traces of his handiwork had disappeared. After surveying a portion of the northern coast Captain King returned to Sydney, starting on a second voyage in the same little vessel in May, ISI9. This time he went by the east coast and through Torres Straits, recommencing hisbuiveyat YYessel Point, the western horn of our great northern gulf. It was on tho 19th September that upon ascending a high hill on Adolphus Island Captain King caught eight of another hill on the mainland, which he called Shakespeare Hill, overlooking a fine sheet of water, which was named Cambridge Gulf. The head of this yulf disappeared among high hills, and King was quite confident that a large river must disembogue into it. Under this impression he ascended the inlet, first in the cutter, and then when it became narrow and tortuous in the whaleboat ; but the water continued salt 60 miles from the sea, and at last, when King could go no further, he had reluctantly to admit that there wa=* no river of any magnitude emptying itself into Cambridge Gulf. He landed on the cliffs to examine the country. The scenery is described as not picturesque, but with a grandeur of its own, amid its aridily. "About 3 miles from the party was the base of a very remarkable quadrangular mass of hills. They ran abruptly from the salt-incruoted plain in steep Blopea, which terminated in cliffs and precipices, or rocky escarpments, over the grassy incline. The cliff protruded at times' so as to resemble the ramparts ot a fortress, with bastions and counterscarps ; and King thought it only wanted a flag at the summit to make the appearance complete. Of course this was a piece of the usual sandstone table land, and its shape is one of the many varieties ot form which these monuments of former denudation assume as thoy slowly weather in the atmosphere. It was named Mount Cockburn. All around the country appeared^ moat desolate ; the grass, which was quite dry, wanted but a spark to set the whole country in flames, and the scene required but such an addition to make its lurid appearance complete. The soil was a stiff clay, covered with salt, and the only traces of life in their lonely land were the footsteps of some native dogs and tbe watch fires of the savages in the distance. There was no inducement to remain in such a place, and King turned hia back upon it as upon a locality on which the curse of God had fallen." Such ia the description given of the surroundings of Cambridge Gulf. King's second voyage terminated on loth January, IS2O, and in the course of it he had explored and surveyed 540 miles of coast. A name since distinguished in the annals of tho < ape Colony and of New Zealand is intimately connected with the history of exploration and discovery on the bleak, burnt-up north-west coast- namely, that of Sir George Grey, In October, 1837, when he was simply Captain Grey, of the S3rd regiment, he conducted an expedition which sailed from tho Cape in the schooner Lynher. It consisted of twelve men, with thirty-one ar eep, nineteen goats, and six dogs. On the 2nd December they reached Ports George the Fourth, and anchored at sunset off Entrance Island. Actuated with the enthusiasm of youth, and in utter ignorance of tho character of

the country, Grey was eager to commence his explorations The next day they were becalmed, and he proposed to the captain of the schooner to land him with a. few men and some dogs, and await his coming at the lower end of the bay. For the following graphic account of his expeiiencelam indebted, aa for my preceding quotation, to Rev. Julian Wood's interesting history of Australian exploration: — "Scarcely had the boat returned when he found out his mistake. The day was clear and hot, and the sun threw down a< scorching heat upon the fiery red rocks around them Cooped up in a vessel for* many months as they had been, they could not walk far in a temperate region ; but here, where the t-tonea and sands were sohot that one could scarcely walk upon them, where not a breath of wind freshened the air,, nor a single tree gave them shelter, one can. easily imagine what their sufferings soon were. But this was not all. The surface was the red Bandstone so cracked and broken, so fissured and piled that it r/aa< like climbing a ruin, and amid the stone* grew angled brushwood and epinifex graes, hiding the crevices so that men and dogsfell into them at every step. It was easy to see that this could not continue long. Grey discovered his mistake too late, and! now the schooner waa out of sight and hearing. All he could do was to make towards aome ehady spot, and there rest until evening. But such a spot he could not find. Meanwhile the heat began to telL upon them terribly as soon as the scantystock of water was exhausted. First the dogs gave in ; some disappeaied mysteriously in the cracks, and others dropped down dead. Then the men also began to drop behind. With the greatest difficulty they were brought along to a little pool of water in a picturesque valley, and there the party rested for awhile. But their difficulties were only commencing. When they attempted to move on again the men were so enfeebled that they could only advance at a rate which would take them nearly three days to reach the vessel This would never do, for their lives depended on their reaching the anchorage that night. Every resource was tried. They plunged into thesea and essayed every other means in vain to refresh themselves. It was of no use At lastGrey started in advance with one companion, intending to send out assistance from the schooner. Here a new obstacle arose. At a mile and a half his progress was stopped by an arm of the sea about 500 yards wide, out of which the tide was sweeping like a torrent, What to do now Grey was at a complete losa to know. He had 1 never thought of such dangers beforehand, an I the madness of hia project came very reproachfully before him. His companion could not swim, and for Grey to go aloneseemed very hazardous. To say nothing of the danger from sharks and alligators, there was a native perched upon the rocks on the opposite side, and where he was more might be. But Grey 'a resolution was soon taken. He must render assistance to his companions, so lie resolved to cross. He stripped to his ehirt, and, with his military cap upon his head, and a pistol in his hand for defence, he plunged in. All the protection the pistol was likely to afford was soon destroyed, for the current was so impetuous that it became a struggle for life with Grey, and the weapon was abandoned. Then the cap caught so much water that the chin strap would have choked him had he not abandoned that too. After a fearful struggle the waves threw him upon the opposite shore. Wounded and exhausted, he clambered up the rocka with nothing in the world about him but his shirt, and just in time to hear the wa cry of the savages close to where he lay Fortunately, it was nearly dark. He managed to secrete hiineelf in a crevice, not daring to show his head, or to look around and see where hia companions or the schooner might be. His position was a trying one, but nature could bear no mere, and in spite of hia danger he fell asleep upon the rocks— a very different spectacle from what he had presented when he started in the morning. From this position he was rescued by a boat from the schooner about ten at night, and thus terminated his first adventure in Australia. I can form some little idea of what such an attempt as this of Sir George Grey's in his " hot youth "" — too hot youth on this occasiou — really implies:, for I once spent a week in that " far north " in the month of December, and although it is two and twenty years ago I retain a singularly vivid recollection of it. It was at Escape Cliff, Adam Bay, where the first essay in settlement from South Australia was made — a locality thoroughly unfitted for the purpose, and which we soon afterwards exchanged for the slightly higher land surrounding Port Darwin, about 40 miles distant, where the town of Jfalmerston is now located. I proceeded to Escape Cliff in the steamer conveying the second contingent of South Australian adventurers, which went by way of Torres Straits and returned by tke west coast, thus completely circumnavigating the island continent. I stayed in the locality as long as the steamer stayed — no longer. During that broiling week I ascended the River Adelaide some dozen miles in a boat, rode over to Chamber Bay, where the flag planted by Stuart, the overland explorer, still fluttered — or rather hung in the torrid sunshine without the ghost of a flutter — caught fish, fired at alligators without producing the slightest effocb on them, and watched the horses being swam ashore, with alligators— great beasts 18 to 20 feet long — only kepb from seizing hold of them by the constant firing of guns and pistols. The pervading aspect of the country to my mind i8 red-hot suni shine, able bodied mosquitoes, white ants and fierce red ditto, tarantula;, centipedes, snakes — sea and land — gigantic black fellows and alligators. I attempted a walk one morning of certainly not more than a couple of miles, and I can't remember that 1 ever felt so completely prostrate before or since in my life. Possibly when I was an infant in arms I might have been weaker, but I did not notice it. That was in latitude south of the equator about 12 degrees. The Kimberley goldfield is about 17 or 18. Tha difference is too slight, however, to mean much, and I can most sincerely declare that if gold be turned out there pure and unalloyed by the ton and only needs raking together, my rake will not be found among the number of those scraping at Kimberley."