58 
Notes on the 
openings, as the strength of the streams was insufficient 
to maintain a channel through the mud flats which front 
the coast. As we advanced to the bottom of the gulf, 
the climate became delightful, the temperature was below 
60° (in the month of August) on a latitude where we 
should have expected it to have been at least 70° or 75°. 
Nor was the genial atmosphere the sole attraction of 
this hitherto unknown territory. 
In 17° 35' S., and 139° 49' E., we were gratified by 
the discoveiy of a large river, which we named the 
Albert. We gladly left the dull mangrove swamps of 
the coasts we had passed, for the rich scenery on the 
banks of this river; and followed up its course for 77 
miles into lat. 17° 59' S., long. 139° 29' E., where 
it was twenty yards wide, with a depth of five feet. 
To within a few miles of fresh water it is navigable for 
vessels drawing twelve feet. On either hand were rich 
alluvial flats of dark mould, excelling in quality the best 
land to be seen at Port Essington. Not a rock was to 
be found, nor any indications of its being the channel of 
a mountain stream; but rushes and drift in the trees 
twenty feet above our heads, and large boulders in the 
bed of the river, showed that at certain seasons of the 
year vast bodies of water, the drainage probably of an 
extensive district in the interior, descend by this channel 
into the Gulf of Carpentaria- A report which comes 
from the Macassar traders, that at certain seasons of the 
year their prahus, anchoring in one fathom out of sight 
of land at the bottom of the gulf, draw up fresh water 
from alongside, proves (if true) that the river floods must 
be sufficiently powerful to drive back the waters of the 
ocean, and for a time to usurp its place. May not all 
this indicate the existence of extensive lagoons in central 
Australia, similar to, and perhaps connected with, that 
which occupies the northern part of the district of South 
