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Adelaide ADELAIDE RIVER afterwards alligator amongst anchored arrived ashore Australia bank beach birds boat Bowen Straits boys brute buffalo bush camp canoe Cape Don Captain cargo carried cattle caught Chinaman Chinese Creek crew Customs cutter Daly River Donegan Ellengowan Escape Cliffs evidently feet fellow fire fish Fort Dundas grass Gulf of Carpentaria H. W. Christie harbour head horses hundred jungle kangaroo killed lagoon landed look M'Arthur Macassar Malays mangroves master Melville Island miles morning natives never niggers night north coast Northern Territory party Paul Foelsche Port Darwin Port Essington proas Queensland realised reef remember Robinson Roper round Searcy seemed settlement shark shooting shot sight skipper soon spears splendid spot station steamer struck swamps thing tide timber tobacco tree trepang tropical turtle vessel Victoria River visited wet season white ants yelling
Popular passages
Page 5 - And I have heard it said among the Dutch, that their East India Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest penalties, any further attempts of discovering that continent, having already more trade in those parts than they can turn to account, and fearing some more populous nation of Europe might make great establishments of trade in some of those unknown regions ; which might ruin or impair what they have already in the Indies.
Page 136 - We expected to have a quick trip ; but alas ! the ' best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley,
Page 15 - Flinders, we learned that they were prows from Macassar, and the six Malay commanders shortly afterwards came on board in a canoe. It happened fortunately that my cook was a Malay, and through his means I was able to communicate with them. The chief of the six prows was a short, elderly man, named Pobassoo; he said there were upon the coast, in different divisions, sixty prows, and that Salloo was the commander in chief.
Page 18 - They carry a month's water in joints of bamboo, and their food is rice, cocoa-nuts, and dried fish, with a few fowls for the chiefs. My numberless questions were answered patiently and with apparent sincerity. Pobassoo even stopped one day longer, at my desire, than he had intended, for the north-west monsoon, he said, would not blow quite a month longer, and he was rather late.
Page 17 - ... as having belonged to her. They sometimes had skirmishes with the native inhabitants of the coast; Pobassoo himself had been formerly speared in the knee, and a man had been slightly wounded since their arrival in this road : they cautioned us much to beware of the natives. They had no knowledge of any European settlement in this country...
Page 15 - Bay that they had fire arms, strengthened the supposition ; and combining this with the appearance of the vessels, I set them down for piratical Ladrones who secreted themselves here from pursuit, and issued out as the season permitted, or prey invited them. Impressed with this idea, we tacked to work up for the road ; and our pendant and ensign being hoisted, each of them hung out a small white flag.
Page 17 - ... slips of bamboo, dried in the sun, and afterwards in smoke, when it is fit to be put away in bags, but requires frequent exposure to the sun. A thousand trepang make a picol, of about 125 Dutch pounds; and 100 picols are a cargo for a proa.
Page 13 - Jr., a graduate of West Point. Gov. Winans has in former years shown himself capable of close application to the duties which lay before him, and his judicious decisions and wise course when attempting to bring about a worthy object, are well known to those who are acquainted with the history of the State. Although it is often said that it is scarcely safe to judge of a man until his career is closed, yet Gov.
Page 17 - They get the trepang by diving in from three to eight fathoms water; and where it is abundant a man will bring up eight or ten at a time. The mode of preserving it is this: the animal is split down one side, boiled and pressed with a weight of stones, then stretched open...
Page 19 - Macassar had been long accustomed to fish for the trepang amongst the islands in the vicinity of Java, and upon a dry shoal lying to the south of Rottee; but about twenty years before, one of their prows was driven by the north-west monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and finding the trepang to be abundant, they afterwards returned; and had continued to fish there since that time. The governor was of the opinion, that the Chinese did not meet them at Timor-laoet, but at Macassar itself, where they...