CAPTAIN 8TUBT ON THE MURRAY 75 



proceeding overcame any feeling of hostility they may have enter- 

 tained, and they cheerfully volunteered assistance, pointing out the 

 proper channels, vigorously using their spears as punting-poles, and 

 with a well-organised rush soon overcame the resistance of the 

 stream. After this excitement the toilsome and monotonous days 

 rolled by, tugging at the oar from daylight till dusk, refreshed 

 only by a limited supply of damper and sugarless tea, worried by 

 the natives when they camped, and robbed of their hard-earned 

 rest by the necessity for night watches, until at length, fifty-five 

 days after they had left it, they once more entered the mouth of 

 the Mumunbidgee. The narrow channel, with its overarching 

 trees, its tangle of snags and driftwood, and its wall-like banks of 

 reeds, was a new variety of trouble, but it was welcomed as an 

 indication of nearing home. It took them a fortnight of laborious 

 progress before they reached the spot where they had embarked ; 

 here they found nothing but the wheel tracks of the homeward- 

 bound drays, and their long cherished hopes of a substantial meal 

 were cruelly shattered. The most gloomy anticipations took posses- 

 sion of the men, who thought they had been abandoned to starva- 

 tion, and their leader, looking round upon the haggard faces and 

 emaciated forms of his crew, was grieved to the heart that he had 

 to insist on a continuance of their severe and unremitting toil. 

 Everything seemed against him, for heavy rains continued to fall, 

 and the Murrumbidgee rose six feet in one night, producing so 

 turbulent a current against them, that from two to three miles a 

 day was often the poor result of their exhausting labour. The fast- 

 failing supply of flour was eked out with an occasional swan or 

 wild-duck, and ragged, despondent and half-starved they struggled 

 bravely on for seventeen weary days. Then, when the last stages 

 of exhaustion were reached, and it was impossible to make head- 

 way against the current, when all were more or less prostrate, and 

 one of the men had lost his reason, they pitched their camp on 

 Hamilton Plains and decided to abandon the boat. Two of the 

 strongest men volunteered to make their way by land to Wanta- 

 badgery, estimated to be nearly eighty miles distant. 



Meanwhile, the remainder of the little band sought what rest 

 they could in their half-famished condition, and at the end of six 



