52 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



servants were named Thomas Boyd, Thomas Smith and William 

 Bollard. Some years after the return of the expedition, when the 

 claims put forward by Hovell to all the credit of it roused the in- 

 dignation of Hume and his friends, three of the men, Boyd, Angel 

 and Fitzpatrick were still living, and their published testimony to 

 the real leadership of Hume was emphatic and conclusive. 



The party, eight in number, were assembled at Hume's station 

 on Lake George on the 13th of October, 1824. Here by careful 

 measurement they found a base line, compared their compasses, 

 and marked on the skeleton chart a direct track to the coast at 

 Western Port. On the 17th they set out, trusting, as Hume says, 

 to his compass, his knowledge of the bush, a stout heart and a 

 hardy constitution. Two days brought them to their first difficulty, 

 the river Murrumbidgee in full flood, with a swift current swirling 

 under its banks. For a while they camped on the banks, hoping 

 that the stream would go down, but on the third day, seeing no 

 signs of abatement, and having failed in the attempt to make a 

 bark canoe sufficiently strong to breast the torrent, Hume impro- 

 vised a punt by taking the wheels off one of the drays and covering 

 it with a tarpaulin. Accompanied by Boyd he then swam across 

 the river with a thin line, with which a stout rope was drawn 

 across, and firmly fixed as a guy for working the punt. In this 

 impromptu vessel the remainder of the party, the second cart and 

 all the stores were ferried over, and the cattle were swam across 

 one by one. But although the first barrier was surmounted, they 

 now found themselves hemmed in by mountains, and it was here 

 that the first difference occurred, resulting in Hovell losing himself. 

 They reached the Coodradigbee Kiver on the 26th, and finding the 

 difficulties of wheel traffic too much for them, agreed to make a 

 depot there, and leave their carts and some of the stores. Amongst 

 the impedimenta which Hovell rejected here was his tarpaulin, but 

 Hume with more foresight carried on his, and without this pre- 

 caution they would probably never have been able to get the party 

 across the Murray, and their journeyings would have ended in 

 New South Wales. For three weeks after the abandonment of their 

 carts they were entangled in a most difficult country of mountain 

 gorges, perpendicular chasms and heavily timbered ranges. It was 



