Watkin Tench's 1788 (24 page)

This scheme, His Excellency was pleased instantly to adopt, adding. ‘If six cannot be taken, let this number be shot. Should you, however, find it practicable to take so many, I will hang two and send the rest to Norfolk Island for a certain period, which will cause their countrymen to believe that we have dispatched them secretly.' The order was accordingly altered to its present form; and I took my leave to prepare, after being again cautioned not to deceive by holding signals of amity.

At four o'clock on the morning of the 14th we marched. The detachment consisted, besides myself, of Captain Hill of the New South Wales corps, lieutenants Poulden and Dawes of the marines, Mr Worgan and Mr Lowes, surgeons, three sergeants, three corporals and forty private soldiers, provided with three days provisions, ropes to bind our prisoners with, and hatchets and bags to cut off and contain the heads of the slain. By nine o'clock this terrific procession reached the peninsula at the head of Botany Bay, but after having walked in various directions until four o'clock in the afternoon, without seeing a native, we halted for the night.

At daylight on the following morning our search recommenced. We marched in an easterly direction, intending to fall in with the south-west arm of the bay, about three miles above its mouth, which we determined to scour and thence passing along the head of the peninsula, to proceed to the north arm and complete our search. However, by a mistake of our guides, at half past seven o'clock, instead of finding ourselves on the south-west arm, we came suddenly upon the sea shore at the head of the peninsula, about midway between the two arms. Here we saw five Indians on the beach, whom we attempted to surround; but they penetrated our design, and before we could get near enough to effect our purpose, ran off. We pursued; but a contest between heavy-armed Europeans fettered by ligatures, and naked unencumbered Indians, was too unequal to last long. They darted into the wood and disappeared.

The alarm being given, we were sensible that no hope of success remained but by a rapid movement to a little village (if five huts deserve the name) which we knew stood on the nearest point of the north arm, where possibly someone unapprised of our approach might yet be found. Thither we hastened, but before we could reach it three canoes filled with Indians were seen paddling over in the utmost hurry and trepidation to the opposite shore, where universal alarm prevailed. All we could now do was to search the huts for weapons of war; but we found nothing except fish gigs, which we left untouched.

On our return to our baggage (which we had left behind under a small guard near the place were the pursuit had begun) we observed a native fishing in shallow water not higher than his waist, at the distance of 300 yards from the land. In such a situation it would not have been easily practicable either to shoot or seize him. I therefore determined to pass without noticing him, as he seemed either from consciousness of his own security, or from some other cause, quite unintimidated at our appearance. At length he called to several of us by name, and in spite of our formidable array, drew nearer with unbounded confidence. Surprised at his behaviour, I ordered a halt that he might overtake us, fully resolved, whoever he might be, that he should be suffered to come to us and leave us uninjured. Presently we found it to be our friend Colbee, and he joined us at once with his wonted familiarity and unconcern. We asked him were Pimelwi was, and found that he perfectly comprehended the nature of our errand, for he described him to have fled to the southward, and to be at such a distance as, had we known the account to be true, would have prevented our going in search of him without a fresh supply of provisions.

When we arrived at our baggage, Colbee sat down, ate, drank, and slept with us, from ten o'clock until past noon. We asked him several questions about Sydney, which he had left on the preceding day;
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and told us he had been present at an operation performed at the hospital, where Mr White had cut off a woman's leg. The agony and cries of the poor sufferer he depicted in a most lively manner.

At one o'clock we renewed our march, and at three halted near a freshwater swamp, where we resolved to remain until morning; that is, after a day of severe fatigue, to pass a night of restless inquietude, when weariness is denied repose by swarms of mosquitoes and sandflies, which in the summer months bite and sting the traveller without measure or intermission.

Next morning we bent our steps homeward and, after wading breast-high through two arms of the sea as broad as the Thames at Westminster, were glad to find ourselves at Sydney, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon.

The few remarks which I was able to make on the country through which we had passed were such as will not tempt adventurers to visit it on the score of pleasure or advantage. The soil of every part of the peninsula which we had traversed is shallow and sandy, and its productions meagre and wretched. When forced to quit the sand, we were condemned to drag through morasses or to clamber over rocks unrefreshed by streams and unmarked by diversity. Of the soil I brought away several specimens.

Our first expedition having so totally failed, the governor resolved to try the fate of a second, and the ‘painful pre-eminence' again devolved on me.

The orders under which I was commanded to act differing in no respect from the last, I resolved to try once more to surprise the village beforementioned. And in order to deceive the natives and prevent them from again frustrating our design by promulging it, we feigned that our preparations were directed against Broken Bay; and that the man who had wounded the governor was the object of punishment. It was now also determined, being full moon, that our operations should be carried on in the night, both for the sake of secrecy and for avoiding the extreme heat of the day.

A little before sunset on the evening of the 22nd, we marched. Lieutenant Abbot and Ensign Prentice of the New South Wales corps were the two officers under my command, and with three sergeants, three corporals and thirty privates, completed the detachment.

We proceeded directly to the fords of the north arm of Botany Bay, which we had crossed in our last expedition, on the banks of which we were compelled to wait until a quarter past two in the morning, for the ebb of the tide. As these passing-places consist only of narrow slips of ground, on each side of which are dangerous holes, and as fording rivers in the night is at all times an unpleasant task, I determined before we entered the water to disburthen the men as much as possible; that in case of stepping wrong everyone might be as ready as circumstances would admit to recover himself. The firelock and cartouche-box were all that we carried, the latter tied fast on the top of the head to prevent it from being wetted. The knapsacks, &c. I left in charge of a sergeant and six men, who from their low stature and other causes were most likely to impede our march, the success of which I knew hinged on our ability, by a rapid movement, to surprise the village before daybreak.

The two rivers were crossed without any material accident, and in pursuit of my resolution, I ordered the guides to conduct us by the nearest route, without heeding difficulty or impediment of road. Having continued to push along the river-bank very briskly for three-quarters of an hour, we were suddenly stopped by a creek about sixty yards wide, which extended to our right and appeared dry from the tide being out. I asked if it could be passed, or whether it would be better to wheel round the head of it. Our guides answered that it was bad to cross, but might be got over, which would save us more than a quarter of a mile. Knowing the value of time, I directly bade them to push through, and everyone began to follow as well as he could. They who were foremost had not, however, got above half over when the difficulty of progress was sensibly experienced. We were immersed nearly to the waist in mud so thick and tenacious that it was not without the most vigorous exertion of every muscle of the body that the legs could be disengaged. When we had reached the middle, our distress became not only more pressing but serious, and each succeeding step buried us deeper. At length a sergeant of grenadiers stuck fast, and declared himself incapable of moving either forward or backward; and just after, Ensign Prentice and I felt ourselves in a similar predicament, close together. T find it impossible to move; I am sinking' resounded on every side. What to do I knew not. Every moment brought increase of perplexity and augmented danger, as those who could not proceed kept gradually subsiding. From our misfortunes, however, those in the rear profited. Warned by what they saw and heard, they inclined to the right towards the head of the creek, and thereby contrived to pass over.

Our distress would have terminated fatally had not a soldier cried out to those on shore to cut boughs of trees
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and throw them to us—a lucky thought which certainly saved many of us from perishing miserably; and even with this assistance, had we been burdened by our knapsacks, we could not have emerged; for it employed us near half an hour to disentangle some of our number. The sergeant of grenadiers, in particular, was sunk to his breast-bone, and so firmly fixed in that the efforts of many men were required to extricate him, which was effected in the moment after I had ordered one of the ropes, destined to bind the captive Indians, to be fastened under his arms.

Having congratulated each other on our escape from this ‘Serbonian Bog', and wiped our arms (half of which were rendered unserviceable by the mud) we once more pushed forward to our object, within a few hundred yards of which we found ourselves about half an hour before sunrise. Here I formed the detachment into three divisions, and having enjoined the most perfect silence, in order, if possible, to deceive Indian vigilance, each division was directed to take a different route, so as to meet at the village at the same moment.

We rushed rapidly on, and nothing could succeed more exactly than the arrival of the several detachments. To our astonishment, however, we found not a single native at the huts; nor was a canoe to be seen on any part of the bay. I was at first inclined to attribute this to our arriving half an hour too late, from the numberless impediments we had encountered. But on closer examination there appeared room to believe that many days had elapsed since an Indian had been on the spot, as no mark of fresh fires or fish-bones was to be found.

Disappointed and fatigued, we would willingly have profited by the advantage of being near water, and have halted to refresh. But on consultation it was found that unless we reached in an hour the rivers we had so lately passed, it would be impossible, on account of the tide, to cross to our baggage, in which case we should be without food until evening. We therefore pushed back, and by dint of alternately running and walking, arrived at the fords, time enough to pass with ease and safety. So excessive, however, had been our efforts, and so laborious our progress, that several of the soldiers, in the course of the last two miles, gave up and confessed themselves unable to proceed farther. All that I could do for these poor fellows was to order their comrades to carry their muskets, and to leave with them a small party of those men who were least exhausted, to assist them and hurry them on. In three-quarters of an hour after we had crossed the water, they arrived at it, just time enough to effect a passage.

The necessity of repose, joined to the succeeding heat of the day, induced us to prolong our halt until four o'clock in the afternoon, when we recommenced our operations on the opposite side of the north arm to that we had acted upon in the morning. Our march ended at sunset, without our seeing a single native. We had passed through the country which the discoverers of Botany Bay extol as ‘some of the finest meadows in the world'.
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These meadows, instead of grass, are covered with high coarse rushes, growing in a rotten spongy bog, into which we were plunged knee-deep at every step.

Our final effort was made at half past one o'clock next morning; and after four hours toil, ended as those preceding it had done, in disappointment and vexation. At nine o'clock we returned to Sydney to report our fruitless peregrination.

But if we could not retaliate on the murderer of McEntire, we found no difficulty in punishing offences committed within our own observation. Two natives, about this time, were detected in robbing a potato garden. When seen, they ran away, and a sergeant and a party of soldiers were dispatched in pursuit of them. Unluckily it was dark when they overtook them, with some women at a fire; and the ardour of the soldiers transported them so far that, instead of capturing the offenders, they fired in among them. The women were taken, but the two men escaped.

On the following day, blood was traced from the fireplace to the sea-side, where it seemed probable that those who had lost it had embarked. The natives were observed to become immediately shy; but an exact knowledge of the mischief which had been committed was not gained until the end of two days, when they said that a man of the name of Bangai (who was known to be one of the pilferers) was wounded and dead. Imeerawanyee, however, whispered that though he was wounded, he was not dead. A hope now existed that his life might be saved; and Mr White, taking Imeerawanyee, Nanbaree, and a woman with him, set out for the spot where he was reported to be. But, on their reaching it, they were told by some people who were there that the man was dead, and that the corpse was deposited in a bay about a mile off. Thither they accordingly repaired, and found it as described, covered—except one leg, which seemed to be designedly left bare—with green boughs, and a fire burning near it. Those who had performed the funeral obsequies seemed to have been particularly solicitous for the protection of the face, which was covered with a thick branch, interwoven with grass and fern so as to form a complete screen. Around the neck was a strip of the bark of which they make fishing lines, and a young straight stick growing near was stripped of its bark and bent down so as to form an arch over the body, in which position it was confined by a forked branch stuck into the earth.