Victoria River

“ It may, at some future time, turn out to be the road to the Victoria River, or one of its tributaries. Wind south and south-west.
Wednesday, 4th July, The Bonney Creek. The water in this hole has been diminishing very rapidly since we were here; it is falling at the rate of six inches per day, which is a poor look-out for us on our homeward course. I have not a day to spare now, as the weather is becoming very hot, and will dry it up much faster. I must push back as soon as my horses are rested and able to undergo the eighty miles without water. ”

“ On the 24th they reached a fine river, which was then running strong. They named it the Ord, and followed its course for a time. Thence he continued his way to the line, and on the 18th of August came to the Victoria River. From the Victoria, Forrest had a hard struggle to reach the telegraph line. The rations being nearly exhausted, and one man being very ill, the leader started for Daly Waters station, taking one man with him. ”

“ I was afraid, when I came the second time down the Murray, that I had exaggerated the number of acres in the valley, but on further examination, it appears to me that I did not do so; for as the traveller approaches Lake Victoria the flats are very extensive, but more liable to inundation than those on the higher points of the river, for being so little elevated above the level of the water, especially those covered with reeds, the smallest rise in the stream affects them. ”

“ It is possible that there may be warm springs on the bed of Lake Victoria, as such springs are of frequent occurrence in the Pamirs; but there is no indication of them in the Chakmaktin basin, and the latter lake must be regarded rather as an incident in the course of the Aksu—a widening of the river channel in the midst of this high-level, glacier-formed valley—than as the fountain-head of the infant stream. ”

“ My plan was to direct a man to walk along near the river, where they are generally found, whilst I kept considerably above him and a little in advance, so that all those that were started running up from the bank in the curved direction, habitual with all kangaroos, passed within shot. The height we visited was of coarse sandstone formation, and attained an elevation of 150 feet. ”

“ Thus the same chain of mountains that fed the Victoria on the east must have a watershed to the west and north that would flow into the Albert Lake. The general drainage of the Nile basin tending from south to north, and the Albert Lake extending much farther north than the Victoria, it receives the river from the latter lake, and thus monopolizes the entire head-waters of the Nile. The Albert is the grand reservoir, while the Victoria is the eastern source. ”

“ We found the tide much weaker on this side of the entrance, not exceeding three miles an hour; the stream ran up three-quarters of an hour after high-water. The times of high-water for the last three days had been most unaccountably the same.
December 5.—Crossed over to Point Pearce at daylight, but the wind being light all the morning did not reach an anchorage till the afternoon; the extreme of the point bearing N. 41° W. three-quarters of a mile. A line of ripplings extended a couple of miles off to the south-west of it, in which we found there was only four fathoms. ”

“ Continuing a south-south-east course through a fine grassy country till 10.0, halted in a patch of green grass. The elevation of this part of the valley of the Victoria is not great, as the barometer stood at 29.77 forty feet above the river; thermometer, 101 degrees. The soil on the bank of the river is good and well-grassed, but the inundations during the rainy season extend on each side of the river several miles. The strata of the sandstone, where exposed, dip to the north, but there is no alteration in the character of the rocks. ”

“ All that is known of the original condition of the natives of Victoria points to this: that the rivers were their homes. The River Murray from Albury to the River Lindsay was well peopled; the Rivers Mitta Mitta, Ovens, Goulburn, Campaspe, Loddon, Avoca, Avon, Richardson, Glenelg, and Wimmera gave refuge to many tribes; in the lake country and on the coast and in Gippsland the tribes were numerous and strong; but as regards the rest of the land included within the boundaries of Victoria, it was either unknown or but frequented for short periods in certain seasons. ”

“ It had been so far a dream of enchantment, their life on board that boat. Day by day, and night by night, this floating up and up the magical, golden river, between ever-changing vistas of loveliness, of palm grove and date plantations, of rose and azure-tinted hills, of deep green bands of the cultivated fields, of burnished stretches of glittering desert, brought to the girl's mind sometimes a sense of unreality.
"One never is so perfectly happy in one's life, for long," she often thought. "The gods must begin to envy me soon, as the Greeks would say, and strike me down." ”

“ This morning she was radiant and happy as she looked through the quivering, yellow light that danced above the sand towards the river. Last night she had fed the camel and caressed it, and she had listened, half awe-struck, to the tom-toms in the distance. The music had seemed to come to her ears with a new sound. The breeze had blown from the river with a new kiss to her face. She was growing into a woman, and the sap of life was rising fast and vigorous within her, lifting her up with the boundless joy of life. ”

“ Before her rose the palm-grove, distinct in all its beauty of feathery-topped trees, against the gorgeous starlit sky. By her side gleamed now the line of the river, silver in the starlight; smooth and lovely, studded with its fierce black rocks, flanked by its orange sand, and here and there, on its edge in the radiant darkness, rose a lofty palm lifting its swaying branches towards the jewelled sky. Silka looked at the river curiously. Now she was keenly alive; life was sharp and alert in every fibre, but it was the last. ”

“ The newly-discovered river he named the Victoria, thinking it would prove to be the same as that found by Captain Stokes on his survey expedition. It was on the Barcoo, or Victoria, that Mitchell first noticed the now famous grass that bears his name. On their return journey, they followed down the Maranoa, and at the old camp at St. George's Bridge, they were told by the natives that white men had visited the place during their long absence. ”

“ Over ten millions of acres are thus covered with forest-clad mountains which in due time will become a very valuable asset of the state. The Australian Alps are connected with the Pyrenees by a long ridge called the Dividing Range (1500 to 3000 ft. high) .
Victoria is fairly well watered, but its streams are generally too small to admit of navigation. This, however, is not the case with the Murray river. ”

“ At a moderate distance from the coast, along the whole extent of this province, there is an extremely fertile country; and when we consider that in the western and northern part of South Australia, and also in the Swan River colony, the really rich agricultural land forms only but scattered oases, and that in many districts of New South Wales the heat of the climate prevents the progress of agriculture, we must look upon Victoria as the most promising, for the future, even did she not possess a distribution of gold through nearly the whole of her mountains. ”

“ Our tidal observation made the time of high-water, at the full and change of the moon, 9 o'clock, when the mean rise at springs was sixteen feet, and at neaps ten. The duration of the flood-stream was seven hours, being two greater than the ebb. The former ran 50' after high-water, and the latter 30' after low-water. Before leaving Holdfast Reach, Lieutenant Emery observed one or two natives, opposite Water Valley, being the only ones that had been seen from the ship. ”

“ It was still so early that, in the whole stretch of rollicking, tumbling, buoyant waters between bank and bank, only one piece of river-craft could be seen. This pushed onward, cleaving through the little billows in the teeth of the morning breeze. It was a tiny naphtha launch—a horrid, fussy, smoking little thing, cutting through breeze and water, and diffusing a scent of oil and greased iron in the pure and radiant air. A white bird on the bank looked at it, and rose with a startled note of alarm, and a flight of lovely-salmon-coloured colleagues followed. ”

“ We got out and walked along the river-bank towards the seashore, where the sea lay calm and still, its black, gently heaving surface reflecting the light of the stars. Where the river debouched, there was a sheltered cove of fine white sand, and here every species of gaily painted craft was drawn up. The light from the Market Square, ablaze with lamps, reached out to it and shewed boat after boat of fantastic shape and colour, with striped awnings fixed on bamboo poles over their centre, lying in the shelter of the palm-trees that fringed the cove. ”

“ We heard with great satisfaction that Lieutenant Emery's search for water had been completely successful, and that two large wells had been dug in the valley, abreast of which the ship was anchored. During our absence the barometer had ranged between 30.08 and 29.97; the minimum height being always at noon. There had been several sharp squalls from the eastward, beginning at south-east and ending at north-east, with a few showers of rain. North-west, or seabreezes, were regular near the changes of the moon, and of greater duration. ”

“ Below the junction of the Kwando and the Zambezi the river bends almost due east. The stream has hitherto flowed, in the main, in a gentle steady current, the depth of water, owing to the breadth of the channel, not being great. But its character is about to change. As it flows eastward towards the border of the great central plateau of Africa it reaches a tremendous chasm in the floor of the earth, and thus the Victoria Falls (q.v.) , the largest waterfalls in the world, are formed. ”

“ CHAPTER III KATRINE'S NEIGHBOURS
Good Luck Row was a little row of small, insignificant cabins towards the back of the city, and at right angles to the direction of the main street. Dawson faces the Yukon, and its main thoroughfare lies parallel with the river. In the summer, when the Yukon and the Klondike, that joins it just above, are free, the waters of the two rivers united come rolling by in jubilant majesty, tossing loose blocks of ice, the remnants of their winter chains, on their swelling tide. ”

“ The craft in greatest favour everywhere on lake, river and bay of Ontario, is the canoe. I do not think anyone can know what an extensive cult is the “canoe” till they see it in Ontario. In season it creeps on the bosom of the lake like a leaf dropped silently from the tree. And Romance rides in more or less every canoe, so that, if anything, the Romantic may be said to be more difficult to keep up with in Ontario than any of the Provinces. The trail of the Romantic invariably leads to a tent somewhere by a stream. ”

“ All through the golden Mexican afternoon we descended the river, down, ever downwards, to the sea. Sometimes in the deep green shadows of overhanging trees, passing through the heart of a forest; sometimes out in the burning open beneath the clear blue of the sky, between flat plains of open country; sometimes on the breast of wide lakes; sometimes between high banks, where the boat went dizzily fast and the waters passed the paddles with a sharp hiss as we rushed on ”

“ Man's prayer throughout the ages to beauty has always been: "Be what you will, act as you will, only give me the privilege of looking at and loving you."
In the early dawn the whole party assembled and started out for the camp. The sky was still softly grey, the air light, almost cool. The gay, wonderful, joyous river rolled blue and clear between its banks covered by lovely feathered throngs, drinking and spreading out their multi-coloured wings to the early light. The palms tossed their swaying branches in the little breeze that comes before the sun. ”

“ O greater contrast can be afforded by Nature than that between level Prairie and the Rocky Mountains. It is at the moment of the change from one to the other that one realizes both are Characters, each separate, individual and eternal. Here, as the train swings along by the banks of the Bow River, one looks up to those towering peaks, their gray and aged cheeks flushed with the wine of the air into perpetual youth, the Character that is Nature dominating all others. One cannot think of those peaks as still and dead matter only. They must be alive! ”

“ Expedition to Inchrory.
September 30, 1859.
At twenty minutes past eleven we started with Helena and Louise in the sociable, Grant on the box, for Loch Bulig, passing the farms of Blairglass and of Dall Dounie, and the shooting-lodge of Corndavon, ten miles distant. Here we found our ponies (mine being “Victoria”) , and rode along the edge of the lake, up a beautiful glen by a path winding through the valley, which appeared frequently closed. We then rode along a small river or burn, of which no one knew the name; none of our party having ever been there before. ”

“ The first object to call your attention is the Gasometer, a large, fine, cut stone building, on the banks of the river. Rising above is seen Bateman's Hill and Signal Station. As you touch the wharf, you find yourself on an extensive platform built alongside, or within one of the two or three docks lately built. Vessels of 200 to 300 tons can go up the river. Some very large and well-built warehouses line the street before you. ”

“ The result of our soundings between Rottenest Island and the main, showed that a bank extended out to the north-east, from the foul ground off the Stragglers, sufficiently to check, in some measure, the vast body of water rolling in from the north-west; and thereby adding to the safety of Gage Roads, provided vessels anchor in the proper berth, which is in seven or eight fathoms, on sandy mud, about a mile from the gaol, bearing E. by N. A quarter of a mile nearer the shore the bottom shoals rapidly to four and three fathoms, on rocky ground slightly coated with sand. ”