five days the tribe would surround me, and ask whether I intended going up or down the creek. At last I made them understand that if they went up I should go up the creek, and if they went down, I should also go down; and from this time they seemed to look upon me as one of themselves, and supplied me with fish and nardoo regularly. They were very anxious, however, to know where Burke lay, and one day when we were fishing in the water-holes close by, I took them to the spot. On seeing the remains, the whole party wept bitterly, and covered them with bushes. After this they were much kinder to me than before, and I always told them that the white men would be here before two moons; and in the evening, when they came with nardoo and fish, they used to talk about the 'white fellows' coming, at the same time pointing to the moon. I also told them they would receive many presents, and they constantly asked me for tomahawks, called by them 'bomay ho.' From this time to when the relief-party arrived, a period of about a month, they treated me with uniform kindness, and looked upon me as one of themselves. The day on which I was released, one of the tribe who had been fishing came and told me that the 'white fellows' were coming, and the whole of the tribe who were then in camp sallied out in every direction to meet the party, while the man who brought the news took me over the creek, where I shortly saw the party coming down." [Illustration: AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.] [Illustration: NARDOO PLANT.] CHAPTER IV. _SEARCH PARTIES AND CONCLUSION._ We must now turn back to the time when Wright reached the Darling. As soon as it was known that Burke and the advance party had not been heard of for five months after leaving Cooper's Creek, great consternation was felt throughout all the colonies, and relief parties were organised and equipped with praiseworthy alacrity. A small contingent, under Mr. A. W. Howitt, was furnished by the Royal Society of Victoria, and started from Melbourne early in July to examine the banks of Cooper's Creek. On the 14th of August, McKinlay was sent out by the South Australian Government, with instructions to reach Cooper's Creek by way of Lake Torrens. Before the end of the same month, two other expeditions--one under Landsborough, and another under Walker--had set out to explore the region round about the Gulf of Carpentaria. These expeditions all prosecuted their search with eagerness, and through their instrumentality our geographical knowledge of the interior was greatly extended; but Mr. Howitt's party was the only one that succeeded in getting facts about the fate of the explorers. [Illustration: BURYING THE BODY OF POOR WILLS]