turned putrid, and seriously disagreed with the men; he said that he should fall back upon the old depôt along the same line on which we had advanced. Under present circumstances, the fate of poor Bawley, if not of more of our horses, was sealed. Mr Stuart and I sat down by the stockade, and as night closed in we lit a fire to guide Morgan and Mack in their approach to the plain. They came up about 2 P.M., having left Bawley on a little stony plain, and the Colt on the sand ridges nearer to us. In the confusion and darkness they had left all the provisions behind; it therefore became necessary to send for some, as we had not had anything for many hours.

The horses Morgan and Mack had ridden were too much knocked up for further work; but I sent the latter on my own horse, with a leather bottle, that had been left behind by the party, full of water for poor Bawley, if he should find him still alive. Mack returned late in the afternoon, having passed the Colt on his way to the depôt, towards which he dragged himself with difficulty, but Bawley was beyond recovery; he gave the poor animal the water, however, for he was a humane man, and then left him to die.

At 5 P.M. the following day, I started again with Mr Stuart for the old depôt, directing Mack and Morgan to follow at the same hour on the following day, and promising that I would send a dray with water to meet them. I rode all that night until 3 P.M. of the 17th, when we reached the tents; and sincere, I believe, was the joy of Mr Browne, and indeed of all hands, at seeing us return. The day after I arrived in camp, I was unable to walk: in a day or two more my muscles became rigid, my limbs contracted, and I was unable to stir; gradually also my skin blackened, the least movement put me to torture, and I was reduced to a state of perfect prostration. Thus stricken down when

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We

my example and energies were so much required for the welfare and safety of others, I found the value of Mr. Browne's services and counsel. He had already volunteered to go to Flood's Creek, to ascertain if water was still to be procured in it; but I had not felt justified in availing myself of his offer. My mind, however, now dwelling on the critical posture of our affairs, and knowing and feeling as I did the value of time, that the burning sun would soon lick up any shallow pool that might be left exposed, and that three or four days might determine our captivity or our release, I sent for Mr Browne, to consult with him as to the best course to be adopted in the trying situation in which we were placed and a plan at length occurred to us by which I hoped he might venture on the journey to Flood's Creek without risk. This plan was to shoot one of the bullocks, and to fill his hide with water. determined on sending this in a dray, a day in advance, to enable the bullock driver to get as far as possible on the road: we then arranged that Mr Browne should take the light cart, with thirty-six gallons of water and one horse only; that on reaching the dray, he should give his horse as much water as he could drink from the skin, leaving that in the cart untouched until he should arrive at the end of his second day's journey, when I proposed he should give his horse half the water, and leaving the rest until the period of his return, ride the remainder of the distance he had to go. I saw little risk in this plan, and we accordingly acted upon it immediately. The hide was prepared, and answered well, since it easily contained 150 gallons of water. Jones started with the dray on the morning of the 27th, and on the 28th Mr Browne left me on this anxious and to us important journey. We calculated on his return on the eighth day, and the reader will judge how anxiously those

days passed. On the day Mr Browne left me, Jones returned, after having deposited the skin at the distance of 32 miles.

On the eighth day from his departure, every eye but my own was turned to the point at which they had seen him disappear. About 3 P.M., one of the men came to inform me that Mr Browne was crossing the creek, and in a few minutes afterwards he entered my tent. "Well, Browne," said I, "what news? Is it to be good or bad?"—" There is still water in the creek," he said, "but that is all I can say. What there is, is as black as ink; and we must make haste, for in a week it will be gone." Here, then, the door was still open,- —a way to escape still practicable, and thank

ful we both felt to that Power which had directed our steps back again ere it was finally closed upon us; but even now we had no time to lose, and to have taken the cattle and sheep, without any prospect of relief, until they should arrive at Flood's Creek, would have been to sacrifice almost the whole of them. I therefore directed three more bullocks to be shot, and their skins prepared, and calculated that by abandoning the boat and our heavier stores, we might carry a supply of water on the drays sufficient for the use of the remaining animals on the way. Three bullocks were accordingly killed, and the skins strapped over them from the neck downwards, so that the opening might be as small as possible. The boat was launched upon the creek, which I had vainly hoped would have ploughed the waters of a central sea. We abandoned our bacon and heavier stores; the drays were put into order, their wheels wedged up, and their axles greased; and on the 6th of December, at 5 P.M., we commenced our retreat towards the Darling, having a distance of 270 miles to travel, under circumstances which made it extremely uncertain how we should terminate the journey.

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At 5 A.M. of the morning of the 7th, having travelled all night, I halted to rest the men and animals. We had then the mortification to find that one of the skins was defective, and let out the water at a hundred different pores. directed the water that remained in the skin to be given to the stock, rather than that it should be lost; but both horses and bullocks refused it, though they drank plentifully of the water in the hides on the following day. We reached Flood's Creek on the 9th of December; but it was not until the 17th of January that I arrived again at my home in Adelaide.

SIR GEORGE GREY'S EXPLORATIONS IN NORTH-WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

A.D. 1837.

ATTACKED BY THE NATIVES.

Sunday, December 17, 1837.-This morning, directly after breakfast, I read prayers to the men, and then commenced my preparations for the excursion on which I intended to start in the evening. Whilst I was occupied in arranging my papers, Mr Lushington observed two natives sitting on the rocks, on the top of the cliffs which overlooked the valley, and gazing down intently on us. The instant that he made friendly signs to them, they rose from their seats and began to retreat. Some of the party then called to them, and one of the natives answered, but they still moved rapidly away. I would not allow them to be followed, for fear of increasing their alarm, and in the hope that they would return; but I was disappointed.

I started in the evening, accompanied by two men, both

soldiers, and we moved up the ravine in which we were encamped in a direction nearly due south. The romantic scenery of this narrow glen could not be surpassed. Its width at the bottom was not more than 40 or 50 feet, and on each side rose cliffs of sandstone, between 300 and 400 feet high, and nearly perpendicular; lofty paperbark trees grew here and there, and down the middle ran a beautiful stream of clear, cool water, which now gushed along a murmuring mountain torrent, and anon formed a series of small cascades. As we ascended higher, the width contracted, the paper-bark trees disappeared, and the bottom of the valley became thickly wooded with wild nutmeg and other fragrant trees. Cockatoos soared, with hoarse screams, above us; many coloured paroquets darted away, filling the woods with their playful cries; and the large white pigeons, which feed on the wild nutmegs, cooed loudly to their mates, and battered the boughs with their wings as they flew away.

The spot I chose to halt at for the night was at the foot of a lofty precipice of rocks, from which a spring gushed forth. We soon erected a little hut of bark, then kindled a fire, and cooked our supper, consisting of tea and two white pigeons which we had shot; and by the time our repast was finished it was nearly dark.

December 18.-At break of day we were again upon our route, which lay up the valley in which we had slept; but as each of us carried ten days' provisions and a day's water, besides our arms, the progress we made, in a tropical climate, was necessarily slow and laborious. Having at length reached the table-land which this valley drained, we found ourselves in the midst of a forest, differing widely from anything we had before seen. The soil beneath cur feet was sandy, and thickly clothed with a