298 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



heads " (Byerley, p. 19). As already mentioned, the river is the 

 " STATEN," dejacto and not de jure. 



Here the NATIVES for the first time evinced a threatening 

 disposition. Running the river up from the point where they 

 had struck it (8 miles below the junction of Cockburn Creek), 

 the little party of explorers was followed for 3 miles by a noisy 

 crowd of armed blacks. " Getting tired of this noisy pursuit, 

 which might at any moment end in a shower of spears, the 

 Brothers turned on reaching a patch of open ground, determined 

 that some of their pursuers should not pass it. This movement 

 caused them to pause, and seeming to think better of their original 

 intention, they ceased to annoy or follow the little party, which 

 pursued its way for 5 miles further, when they camped in the bed 

 of the stream." 



The character of the country to which the Jardines had now 

 penetrated had entirely changed. The littoral of the southern 

 end and eastern side of the Gulf of Carpentaria is a network of 

 salt-water inlets, which if nothing were known of their hinterland, 

 might be supposed to be the delta of a single gigantic river. The 

 inlets, however, prove to be the ANASTOMOSING MOUTHS of a great 

 number of rivers which take their rise in the high ground to the 

 south and east. Any one of the rivers may be followed down with 

 confidence till it enters the deltal plain, whereupon it splits up into 

 anabranches, which sooner or later coalesce with similar anabranches 

 of other rivers. On the other hand, a traveller who attempted 

 to follow any inlet of the sea up to its head, would find himself, 

 within the deltal area, in a maze of anabranches. With no finger- 

 post to guide him, he might, for example, turn to the right and 

 find himself on the Norman, or to the left and find himself on the 

 Gilbert. Moreover, any two travellers crossing the NETWORK OF 

 DELTAL ANABRANCHES, say from south to north, on parallel courses 

 a few miles apart, would form quite different ideas as to what 

 were " main streams " and what were mere " tributaries." An 

 anabranch might in one place contain a long deep water-hole, and 

 a few miles distant be only a barely distinguishable hollow. It 

 may be stated that the mouths of the Nicholson, Gregory, Albert, 

 Leichhardt, Flinders, Norman, Gilbert, Staten, de jacto, Dunbar, 

 Mitchell, Coleman, Holroyd and Archer Rivers anastomose. 



For this reason, the rivers named by the Jardine Brothers, 

 who kept as much as possible on the upper edge of the delta out 

 of consideration for their cattle, are difficult of identification, 

 even with the aid of modern maps. 



On i$th November, the BROTHERS and EULAH moved up and 

 found the MAIN CAMP (Camp 18) settled on COCKBURN CREEK 

 about 25 miles above its confluence with the Staten, de Jacto. 

 Richardson gives the latitude of the camp as 16 46' 5" S. 



On the i6tb, the now UNITED EXPEDITION followed COCKBURN 



