Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02 — John Shaqi
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02Eyre, Edward John
History
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
For some time we travelled slowly and silently onwards. Wylie preceding,
leading one of the horses, myself following behind and driving the others
after him, through a country consisting still of the same alternations of
scrub and open intervals as before. The day became very warm, and at
eleven, after travelling ten miles to the west, I determined to halt
until the cool of the evening. After baking some bread and getting our
dinners, I questioned Wylie as to what he knew of the sad occurrence of
yesterday. He positively denied all knowledge of it--said he had been
asleep, and was awoke by the report of the gun, and that upon seeing the
overseer lying on the ground he ran off to meet me. He admitted, however,
that, after the unsuccessful attempt to leave us, and proceed alone to
King George's Sound, the elder of the other two natives had proposed to
him again to quit the party, and try to go back to Fowler's Bay, to the
provisions buried there. But he had heard or knew nothing, he said, of
either robbery or murder being first contemplated.
My own impression was, that Wylie had agreed with the other two to rob
the camp and leave us;--that he had been cognisant of all their
proceedings and preparations, but that when, upon the eve of their
departure, the overseer had unexpectedly awoke and been murdered, he was
shocked and frightened at the deed, and instead of accompanying them, had
run down to meet me. My opinion upon this point received additional
confirmation from the subsequent events of this day; but I never could
get Wylie to admit even the slightest knowledge of the fatal occurrence,
or that he had even intended to have united with them in plundering the
camp and deserting. He had now become truly alarmed; and independently of
the fear of the consequences which would attach to the crime, should we
ever reach a civilized community again, he had become very apprehensive
that the other natives, who belonged to quite a different part of
Australia to himself, and who spoke a totally different language, would
murder him as unhesitatingly as they had done the white man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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