THE NORTH-AUSTRALIAN EXPEDITION. 203 



toria, the distance being greatly increased by having to head a deep 

 salt-water creek, which joined the river opposite Kangaroo Point. On 

 the 20th reached the camp which had been established by a party from 

 the schooner, on the left bank of the river, in lat. 15° 34'. 



10. Here I learned that the schooner had got aground about eight 

 miles below Curiosity Hill on the 27th September, and had not yet 

 been got afloat, though the tide had driven her over several banks ; 

 that she had sustained much injury, and leaked so much that a large 

 quantity of the stores were damaged. 



11. The following day I proceeded down the river in one of the 

 boats, and reached the 'Tom Tough ' on the 22nd. 



12. The schooner had not moved for some days, and the leaks were 

 m some degree lessened by nailing battens and tarred blankets over 

 the seams which had opened. Being bedded four feet in the sand, I 

 could not examine her bottom, though the bank was dry at three- 

 quarter ebb. 



13. Several of the deck beams were fractured, and there were many 

 indications of her being much strained by the tide having worked deep 

 holes at the bow and stern, and then leaving her dry on a narrow bank 

 amidships. 



14. The tides were too low to float her till the 24th; after which, 

 every succeeding tide carried the vessel a short distance higher up the 

 river, and on the 27th cleared the banks and reached Sandy Island. 

 On the 29th she moored at the Camp, where there was a convenient 

 spot for discharging the cargo and repairing the vessel. 



15. On examining the schooner, the keelson was found to be broken 

 near the mainmast, three of the deck beams broken, and almost all the 

 knees which secure the deck much strained from their places, the butts 

 of several of the planks started, and much of the copper torn off. 



16. There having been, on several occasions, three feet water in the 

 vessel's hold, much of the cargo was damaged ; more than half the 

 bread, sugar, and other dry provisions belonging to the vessel bein 



5 



wholly destroyed. The stores belonging to the Expedition, from being 

 more carefully packed, did not suffer so much, about half a ton of 

 flour, the same quantity of rice, 3 cwt. of salt, and 8 cwt. of sugar 

 being destroyed; besides which, many packages of stores were da- 

 maged by the water leaking through the deck. 



17. The greatest loss however which the Expedition has sustained, 



