piled heaps of large stone or shingle, as level and neatly stacked as if placed by hand, and in these places, nearly always forming a rapid, the water rising its level very fast, that sometimes on looking over the narrow ledge we were tracking the boat along we found the water to be 10 and 12 feet lower than where our boat was floating, giving it the appearance of a lock-gate only being parallel with the river instead of crossing it. This is of course caused by the channel being blocked or blind, and the water having the same level as the lower water-level of the rapid. In some places these rapids were very difficult of ascent.[1] One place notably, we were twelve of us one hour and twenty minutes in the water holding on to the boat, scarcely gaining anything, the stones shifting and washing away from under our feet with such force that sometimes the bow of the boat was afloat and the stern high and dry with the force of the current washing or wedging the stones under her. It was only with the utmost difficulty that we could prevent the boat from obtaining the mastery: for the bow to have moved round one point of the compass meant to us the loss of arms, ammunition, food, boat, and everything else, and this at a distance of 70 miles from the depôt was at least serious. The ascent in the whale-boat proved very trying work to the party, made as it was under a tropical sun directly overhead, our latitude and the sun's declination being almost approximate. These gravel wastes or circles form natural reservoirs, and during the rainy season are of course full of water, and must form quite lakes or lagoons whenever freshets come down the river. We ascended thus for seven days without much change of scenery, during which time we saw no natives, but passed plenty of shelters, and occasionally the recent foot-prints of small parties, and although the red hills got higher as we ascended, they still kept the east side of the river, and we could not see the mountains. The channels becoming narrower, and snags more awkward and numerous as we advanced, making it very difficult to prevent the boat being stove.
On September 22nd, after coming up a long straight reach, we dropped upon a recent camp of natives on a gravel spit where the river makes a junction and receives a large tributary apparently directly from the mountains. I think they must have taken the boat for some new animal seeking to devour them, for they fled on first sighting us, leaving everything behind them, even to their fire-sticks. This tributary goes to the north-north-east, while the main river takes a westerly bend. I name this the Carrington Junction, and the river the Cecilia River, named in honor of Lady Carrington.
To me the deposit of stone and sand coming from this river differs somewhat
- ↑ N.B.—We always had to get into the water, and drag and carry the boat over.
