The Project Gutenberg EBook of Australian Search Party, by Charles Henry Eden

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Title: Australian Search Party

Author: Charles Henry Eden

Posting Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #4237]
Release Date: July, 2003
First Posted: December 13, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUSTRALIAN SEARCH PARTY ***

Produced by Amy E. Zelmer and Sue Asscher. HTML version by Al Haines.

AUSTRALIAN SEARCH PARTY

BY

CHARLES HENRY EDEN

FROM

ILLUSTRATED TRAVELS:

A RECORD OF

DISCOVERY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ADVENTURE.

EDITED BY

H.W. BATES,

ASSISTANT-SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

AN AUSTRALIAN SEARCH PARTY--I.

BY CHARLES H. EDEN.

IN a former narrative, published in the preceding volume of the
ILLUSTRATED TRAVELS, I gave an account of a terrible cyclone which
visited the north-eastern coast of Queensland in the autumn of 1866,
nearly destroying the small settlements of Cardwell and Townsville, and
doing an infinity of damage by uprooting heavy timber, blocking up the
bush roads, etc. Amongst other calamities attendant on this visitation
was the loss of a small coasting schooner, named the 'Eva', bound from
Cleveland to Rockingham Bay, with cargo and passengers. Only those who
have visited Australia can picture to themselves the full horror of a
captivity amongst the degraded blacks with whom this unexplored
district abounds; and a report of white men having been seen amongst
the wild tribes in the neighbourhood of the Herbert River induced the
inhabitants of Cardwell to institute a search party to rescue the crew
of the unhappy schooner, should they still be alive; or to gain some
certain clue to their fate, should they have perished.

In my former narrative I described our exploration of the Herbert
River, lying at the south end of Rockingham Channel, with its fruitless
issue; and I now take up the thread of my story from that point,
thinking it can hardly fail to be of interest to the reader, not only
as regards the wild nature of the country traversed, but also as
showing the anxiety manifested by the inhabitants of these remote
districts to clear up the