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
Towards evening Wylie returned gloomy and sulky, and without having fired
a shot; neither had he brought the horses up with him to water as I had
requested him to do, and now it was too late to go for them, and they
would have to be without water for the night. I was vexed at this, and
gave him a good scolding for his negligence, after which I endeavoured to
ascertain what had so thoroughly put him out of humour, for ordinarily he
was one of the best tempered natives I had met with: a single sentence
revealed the whole--"The----dogs had eaten the skin."
This observation came from the very bottom of his soul, and at once gave
me an idea of the magnitude of the disappointment he had sustained; the
fact was, upon leaving the camp in the morning he had taken a firestick
in his hand, and gone straight back to where we skinned the kangaroo on
the 21st, with the intention of singeing off the hair and eating the
skin, which had been left hanging over a bush. Upon his arrival he found
it gone: the wild dogs had been beforehand with him and deprived him of
the meal he expected; hence his gloomy, discontented look upon his
return. As yet I had not told him that I had been fishing; but upon
showing him what I had brought home, and giving him the two largest for
supper, his brow again cleared, and he voluntarily offered to go out
again to try to get a kangaroo to-morrow.
May 23.--Leaving Wylie asleep at the camp, I set off early to fish at
Point Malcolm. After catching four rock-fish, weighing five pounds, and
losing several hooks, I commenced hunting about among the rocks for
crabs, of which I procured about a dozen They were quite different from
the English crab, being very small, not more than three or four inches in
diameter, and without any meat in the inside of the shell; but the chine
and claws afforded very fair pickings. Upon returning to the camp, I
learnt from Wylie with great satisfaction that he had shot another
kangaroo as he went to bring up the horses. The latter were now at the
camp; so sending him to water them, I remained behind to dry my clothes,
which had got thoroughly wetted in catching the crabs.
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