258 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



It was intended that the " Rattlesnake " (28 guns) should be 

 accompanied by the " Bramble" under LIEUTENANT C. B. YULE, 

 and the " Castlereagh" under Lieutenant Aird. A survey, however, 

 proved the " Castlereagh " to be unfit for the service, and she was 

 left behind. The complement of the " Rattlesnake" when she 

 commenced her northern work, was 154 officers and men, and that 

 of the " Bramble " 36. A decked boat, named the " Asp" 

 followed the expedition, and appears when conducting independent 

 operations to have usually been in charge of LIEUTENANT DAYMAN. 

 JOHN MACGILLIVRAY was Naturalist and a younger naturalist 

 was THOMAS HUXLEY, who was destined to attain world-wide 

 fame as a biologist. Owing to the illness and death of the 

 Commander of the expedition, which took place before the work 

 was completed, it is not to his pen, but to MacGillivray's that 

 we owe the narrative of the voyage, 1 and from Huxley's brush 

 came the spirited drawings which illustrate the text. 



The "Rattlesnake" left PLYMOUTH on nth December, 1846, 

 and reached SYDNEY on i6th July, 1847. On nth October, she, 

 with the "Bramble" set out for Port Curtis and the north, anchor- 

 ing in UPSTART BAY (between the sites of Bowen and Townsville, 

 two towns not as yet founded) on loth December, 1847. (SEE 

 MAP O.) They returned to SYDNEY on I4th January, 1848. 



2. SECOND NORTHERN CRUISE 



The second northern cruise began at Sydney on 29th April, 

 1848. Up to that date, with the exception of Leichhardt's brief 

 appearance on the base of the triangular area of the Cape York 

 Peninsula, in 1845, the exploration of the Peninsula had penetrated 

 only in a few places for a few miles from the coast, and had been 

 entirely the work of maritime pioneers. The time had now 

 arrived for the opening up of the interior, and Kennedy's ambitious 

 scheme for an overland journey from Rockingham Bay to Cape 

 York was about to be carried out. The " Rattlesnake " and 

 " Bramble," therefore, had the honour of convoying the barque 

 " 1am O'Sbanter," with KENNEDY'S EXPEDITION on board, to 

 ROCKINGHAM BAY, the scene of its initial operations. (SEE MAP K.) 



On 2^rd and 24^ May, 1848, the sailors assisted Kennedy 

 with the debarkation of his men, horses, sheep and stores, and 

 immediately thereafter began their own labours to complete the 

 survey of the INNER PASSAGE to the north. It was arranged that 

 the " Bramble " was to be in PRINCESS CHARLOTTE BAY during 

 the first week of August, to wait for Kennedy and to assist him 

 in any way possible. (SEE MAP E.) We have already seen how 



1 Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. " Rattlesnake," commanded by the late Captain 

 Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S., etc., during the Years 1846-1850. By John MacGillivray, 

 F.R.G.S., Naturalist to the Expedition. Published under the Sanction of the Lords 

 Commissioners of the Admiralty. London, 1852. 



