330 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



ISLANDS. The rain poured down heavily and CAMP 88 was pitched 

 on the eastern, or right, bank of the creek. 



THE PROBLEM WAS SOLVED ! And the solution was a disgusting 

 anti-climax. THE RIVER WAS NOT THE ESCAPE, and it lay, an 

 apparently insurmountable barrier, between the explorers and 

 their goal, where the father anxiously awaited the sons, who were 



nOW LESS THAN 30 MILES SOUTH-WEST OF SOMERSET. 



Six miles south-west of the mouth of the river an indentation 

 in the coast-line of the Endeavour Straits maybe the " waterplaets " 

 (watering-place) marked on the chart by JAN CARSTENSZOON on 

 1 3th May, 1623, when he and ten musketeers landed from the 

 " Pera" and found ( > a very fine FRESH- WATER RIVER, flowing into 

 the sea, whence fresh water can easily be obtained by means of 

 boats or pinnaces." This inlet was named the REVIER VAN SPULT, 

 and there can be no doubt that it is a MOUTH OF THE JARDINE RIVER. 

 The fresh water at the landing was probably due to floods. It is 

 strange that Carstenszoon's diary never once mentions any meteoro- 

 logical conditions except winds. 



On the NEW RIVER, the Brothers proposed to bestow the name 

 of the DECEPTION, but subsequently the Governor of Queensland, 

 Sir George Bowen, gave orders that it should be charted, and named 

 it the JARDINE RIVER. No name could have been more appropriate. 

 The Brothers had indeed made the river their own. They had 

 discovered it, followed it down from its head to the salt water 

 during twelve toilsome and costly marches and investigated its 

 surroundings. In time alone it had cost them a month, and was yet 

 to cost some weeks more before the remnant of the cattle was 

 delivered at Somerset. 



