Saturday 17 April 1841

Heavy rain and wind, west during the night. 8 am heavy rain and a westerly wind. AM Busy correcting vocabulary. My tent, as usual, since day dawn was thronged with natives. 10 am saddled the horses and started with Sievwright and John his brother and an Aboriginal native guide [blank], alias Charley, for Lake Elengermite [Elingamite]. Passed the west end of Tarong [Lake Terang], fresh lake. Thence through some thickly wooded country. Forded Black's river [Mt Emu Creek], boggy, and pursuing a devious country alternating between close forest and small plains and marsh land. Hazy weather with rain. Boomer kangaroos in droves crossed; fled at our approach and bounded off in various directions. Passed by the west side of Cub.er.coke [Cobrico Swamp], the same that I visited yesterday.

Several times during our journey, the native guide was out of his way, and after having travelled acknowledged he could not tell where the lake was. We were left to our own judgement and it was resolved to keep a northeast course. I immediately pushed forward and, keeping the course through a thick forest over grown with brush wood, in about two miles further came to Lake Ellingermite. We fortunately struck about the centre of the lake. We guessed the lake to be nine miles round. It is perfectly fresh and, like most of the lakes, has a high bank round it. The east side and north the banks are steep. A belt of tea tree skirts the edge but there is an excellent view of the lake from the banks. Wild waterfowl, ducks, swan, &c. were here.

The country round Lake Elingermite is densely wooded. Stringy bark and gum are about two feet through. Moved round to the west-end and spread our viands on a fallen tree, close to which were several native huts - rude and constructed of bark and sticks. Two ovens were close by and in the hollow of two trees were concealed property - if the nature of perchis or sticks in the cavity of trees can be called concealment. It was apparent that few white men had visited this sequestered spot or the natives would not have been so careless in secreting it.

We examined the baskets (and which I should not have done but that as the custom and manner of this people were new to me I was anxious to embrace every opportunity for information) and parcels which were carefully bound up. They consisted of the small leg bones of the kangaroo, some sharpened into a point - and which are used for piercing the kangaroo and opposum skins for making rugs. Two I brought away. Also pieces of broken glass, bottle, [blank] or pipe clay, oker, pieces of lava or scoria, sinews, stick for striping bark and a pair of old cord trousers and some pieces of European raiment. In one basket we found an amulet, this is the fat or bone of an enimy killed at Lurer [Mt Leura]. The shape was that of a small bud, size of a walnut tied up in opposum skin with the fur turned inward, and bound round with sinews and suspended to a cord of oppossum fur to hang round the neck. Our native guide brought away. In return, I left a new cotten handkerchief. I found a lead pencil, whole, in their basket and as I needed it, I brought it away. There was also two or three pieces of iron hoop and a long drinking reed. Some provision was also left for them. Our native guide also took a ball of [blank] or pipe clay.

Lake Elengermite lays embedded in the midst of a dense forest. The water is fresh and I could not help regretting that so much good water should lay waste in a country where water is scarce. The country around Elengermite is a dreary wilderness, a level without elevations and, to me, cheerless. Yet I could not help thinking that to the Aborigines it must be a warm and a secure retreat, and a comfortable and independent home; except the danger from strange tribes. And I wondered why they ventured to expose their lives by visiting stock stations and where they have engendered European diseases and vice for the sake of a little damper. It can only be the false taste acquired for European food and tobacco &c.

In viewing the natives property stored in the two trees, and which was the property of two families, I could not help contrasting the inventory of the stores of these two families with the personal property of an European. And yet these persons were more independent than the latter as they procured their daily supply from what the earth spontaneously appended, whilst the latter were dependent on others for their daily subsistence.