ourindooroopilly.com title    Home     Close Window

Readings from Primary Sources on Moreton Bay & Brisbane

These "Readings" from Barron Field's book, Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales are reprinted from J.G. Steele, The Explorers of the Moreton Bay District 1770-1830, Brisbane, 1972. They relate the first part of the story of the three castaways, Thomas Pamphlet, John Finnegan and Richard Parsons, Narrative of Thomas Pamphlet, as told to John Uniacke and published in Barron Field's book. Field's version has evidently been redrafted from a manuscript in the Mitchell Library which may well have been in John Uniacke's writing. Steele quotes the manuscript in footnotes whenever it appears to be more accurate.
Note that Footnotes are per J.G. Steele.
Story so far— Pamphlet, Parsons and Finnegan, three ticket-of-leave convicts, had been blown north from Sydney by a storm in an open boat and had wrecked on Moreton Island. They eventually crossed South Passage to Stradbroke Island. With kind treatment by local Aborigines and strength restored, they were set on returning to Sydney which they believed lay north. Building a canoe, they crossed to the mainland and then proceeded by foot up the right bank of a large river...
Extracts from the Narrative of Thomas Pamphlet
On the third day1 we arrived on the bank of a large river,2 at a place where it was evident the natives use to cross over; but it was too wide for us to attempt to swim, and we could not find a canoe; we therefore resolved to go up the river until we should find some means of crossing it. Accordingly we travelled on for nearly a month,3 being very much impeded by the number of salt creeks, which we were obliged to walk round, as neither of my companions were able to swim sufficiently well to attempt crossing them.

At last4 we reached the bank of a creek,5 on the opposite side of which we saw two canoes;6 one of these I was resolved to procure. I accordingly swam across,7 but I found myself so weak (as we had now lived for a month on fern-root), that it was with great difficulty I reached the other side. I loosed the canoe, and brought it back to my companions. It was, however, so small that it would not carry more than two of us at a time. I therefore took Parsons over the main river first, and then returned for Finnegan; but we found the brush so thick, and the country so rough,8 that it was impossible for us, naked and shoeless as we were, to travel it. I was therefore obliged to take them back in the same manner, to the place we had left.

We then commenced our return the way we had come,9 but we had not in returning any thing like the difficulty which we experienced in coming up, since, whenever we came to a river or creek, instead of travelling seven or eight days in order to get round it, we were enabled to cross it in the canoe. We thus continued for two or three days,10 Parsons and Finnegan walking, and I paddling down in the canoe, till on the opposite side of the river we found another canoe; and being all now able to float down the river, we agreed to rest where we were a few days, in order to lay in a stock of fern-root. While thus employed, we fell in with a party of blacks, who were going to fish with their nets, and on our asking them, they gave us a good meal of fish; but the next day they seemed anxious that we should leave them; and upon our not doing so, as readily as they wished, they made an attempt to seize our canoes. We were fortunate enough, however, to get them out of their reach, and proceeded on our journey.

In two days afterwards11 we reached the mouth of the river, where, on a sand-bank at the entrance, I was so lucky as to kill five large sting-rays, which afforded us some good meals. The river, as high up as we reached, was brackish, and a very strong tide ran in it: it was above a quarter of a mile wide where we turned back. We now left the smaller canoe, and my companions walked along the beach, while I, in the other canoe, pulled along the shore. In this manner we continued our course to the northward for three days, and on the evening of the third day reached the point12 which had been originally pointed out to us by the blacks on the island, where our boat was lost. This was the 101st day13 after we left Sydney, Parsons and I having kept a strict account thus far; but from this time forward we totally lost our reckoning.

I had brought Parsons across the last bay14 in the canoe, and had promised to go back immediately for Finnegan; but he, having walked a little distance further along the shore, found a canoe, in which were twenty or thirty large fish. This he immediately seized, and we had scarcely landed, when we perceived him paddling towards us. On his approach, he called out to us to make a good fire, as he had plenty of fish; upon which we ran down to the shore, and as soon as he landed, having hauled up the canoe, we carried the fish to some empty huts which we found hard by. In the meantime, the natives who owned the canoe began to call out, and at length followed Finnegan across in another canoe to the number of about ten. By this time several of the natives of the side on which we were, being alarmed by the noise, had joined them, and they all proceeded towards the huts. We had now for several weeks lived almost entirely on dingowa, which being but a poor kind of food, together with the fatigue of travelling so far under a burning sun without clothes, had weakened and emaciated us very much, and we resolved to run every risk sooner than lose the fish we had thus obtained: we therefore placed them under some bark, and I took my axe and Finnegan a stick, being determined not to lose them without a struggle. However, when the natives approached, they seemed at once struck with our miserable condition; and instead of attempting to repossess themselves of the fish, some who had their nets with them instantly set to work to procure more for us; and one or two fetched us as much dingowa as they could carry. The next night they took us to their huts, where they entertained us in the same hospitable manner as the blacks, with whom we had before lived, had done.
1. About 7 June.
2. The Brisbane River, at Lytton.
3. It is necessary to assume that this period was two weeks rather than a month, in order to account for their arrival at Redcliffe on 30 June. Alternatively, the time spent in building the canoe at Amity Point (said to be three weeks) might have been shorter than stated by Pamphlet.
4. About 23 June.
5. Oxley Creek.
6. Oxley's field book for 3 December 1823 refers to "the mouth of a small river, which we called Canoe River, being the spot where Parsons and his companions found a canoe in which they went down the river." Oxley's chart gives "Canoe Reach" as the name of this part of the Brisbane River.
7. That is, across Oxley Creek, the width being of the order of 25 yards. The present bridge at this place is called the Pamphlett Bridge.
8. Long Pocket.
9. Along the right bank.
10. This would have brought them to about Kangaroo Point or Bulimba on about 25 June.
11. About 27 June.
12. Clontarf Point on the Redcliffe Peninsula.
13. 30 June.
14. Hay's Inlet.