Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone), 1792-1855
Mr. Larmer's men were still seven miles behind him, and had had no water
since they left the Macquarie two days previously, nor much to eat, for
they had carried rations for seven days only, and this was the ninth
since they quitted the camp. We therefore sent back a man with a loaf and
a kettle of water, and he met them four miles behind the party. We
continued the journey four miles beyond our old camp, to a pond which the
overseer had found, and was then the nearest water to our former
position. To this pond the cattle came on tolerably well after having
travelled fourteen miles, and having passed the previous night almost
without water. The party was at length reunited here; and we had now
passed the so much-dreaded long dry part of the bed of the Bogan. An old
native and a boy, apparently belonging to the Myall tribes, came in the
evening, but we could learn nothing from them. They were covered with
pieces of blanket, and the man used a Scotch bonnet as a bag. They said
they had been to Buckenba where there were five white men.
TRACES OF MR. CUNNINGHAM.
In the bed of the river where I went this evening to enjoy the sight of
the famished cattle drinking, I came accidentally on an old footstep of
Mr. Cunningham, in the clay, now baked hard by the sun. Four months had
elapsed since we had traced his steps, and up to this time the clay bore
these last records of our late fellow-traveller!
September 4.
The old man with a hideous mumping face again came up, and took his place
at one of our fires, having sent the boy on some message, probably to
bring others of his tribe or tell them of our movements. I asked him
about Mr. Cunningham but could only obtain evasive answers, and I thought
it best to order him peremptorily to quit our camp. This I did in loud
terms, firing a pistol at the same time over his head. He walked off
however with a firm step, and with an air which I thought rather
dignified under the circumstances. Early this morning I sent overseer
Burnett on before us with three of the party to look for water, leaving
the cattle and the men who came in yesterday to rest until 10 A.M. Today
and yesterday we once more beheld a sky variegated with good swelling
clouds, and enjoyed a fresh breeze from the south-west. The sight even of
such a sky was now a novelty to us, and seemed as if we had at last got
home. We had in fact already ascended five hundred feet above the level
of the plains of the interior, and were approaching the mountains. At
eleven we proceeded and struck into our old track where it touched on the
Bogan, and we crossed its channel half a mile beyond where we had been
encamped so long when looking for Mr. Cunningham. On this day's journey
we again intersected his footsteps; and I could not avoid following them
once more to the pond on the Bogan where he must have first drunk water
after a thirst and hunger of four or five days! There was water still
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