Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/58

 ^, ADELAIDE AND VICINITY The Founders Light and his officers always clipped up salt water, they considered, although they had found an island, that they had not yet come upon Captain Jones's discovery. Ilie discrepjincy between the two reports was probably due to the different seasons at which the locality was visited. Captain Jones must have seen the Port Adelaide river during a Hood, while Colonel Light found it in its normal state. Colonel Light now went farther north, still searching for Captain Jones's river and harbor. Then he turned back, and met Mr. Samuel .Stephens and Mr. Morphett, with whom he proceeded into Rapid Bay. The Cygnet had meanwhile reached Nepean Bay, and as its passengers and stores had been landed at Kingscote Harbor, Colonel Light gave instructions that they must be re-shipped. He had determined to use a part of the coast a few miles south of Port Adelaide as a temporary depot until a site more promising and offering superior advantages for a harbor might be discovered. After her passengers and stores were re-shipped, the Cygiid moved up the coast and anchored in a roadstead, which was named Holdfast Bay. The survey officers on the Cygnet — Mr. Kingston, Mr. Einniss, and others -were instructed to e.xplore the beautiful plain which lay between Mount Lofty, in the east, and Fort Adelaide. They and the other passengers were landed in Holdfast Bay at Glenelg, and became the pioneer setders in Gulf St. Vincent. Their lot was similar to that of those who have paved the way for new colonies in the United States and in the British communities that are scattered over the earth like homesteads in a valley. They were lodged on the edge of the continent ; south lay the ocean ; east, west, and north were hundreds of miles of waste land, inhabited only b- an aboriginal race. To make themselves comfortable, they put up their tents or constructed huts of reeds, bark, and branches of trees. Wood was gathered in the bush ; water was conveyed to the camp by means of sledges ; fires were lighted in the midst of the camp ; and something like an extensive picnic improvised in a primitive way. Near the landing-place of the pioneers was a family of natives, who watched from lx.'hind bushes and trees the employment of these people, whose appearance and habits were to them so unique and strange ; and their amazement and alarm can easily be understood. The settlers unpacked 24 muskets, and set a guard to repulse an apprehended attack ; but they might have saved themselves the trouble on this occasion, for the aborigines were altogether too frightened to act on the offensive. Mr. W. Williams wheedled one of them to enter the camp, and after the latter's curiosity was satiated with the wonders displayed there, and his appetite was cajoled with and educated to new kinds of food, he went proudly back to his jieople, and enticed them to come and see the .sixictjicle. In this way the two races met and instituted some sort of friendly communion. The subsequent narrative is tedious and complicated. Several months elapsed before the earliest arrivals and those who (juickly joined them removed to a more permanent settlement. Colonel Light and the surveyors had many difficulties to contend with, and