220 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



the consumption at one in two days, and balancing losses while 

 travelling by economies made possible by the capture of game, 

 there should have been 38 left on 2jth September. 



Two NATIVES were seen, carrying spears, on 2%tb September. 



On $otb September, the expedition moved on for 5 or 6 miles 

 to the west, across a plain, when, finding a dry lagoon where a 

 supply of water was expected, they RETURNED to the camp on 

 STATION CREEK. Nothing is said of the SHEEP, but the poor animals 

 must have been about equally unfortunate whether they had to 

 be left where there was no water or were driven 10 or 12 miles 

 back in the summer heat. 



The ist of October, being Sunday, was spent in rest and prayer. 

 Next day (2nd October), the party again crossed the plain westward, 

 the NATIVES BURNING THE GRASS behind them, so that they were 

 glad to hurry on to a patch which had already been burned. They 

 must have reached water, probably in the HANN RIVER, about the 

 place where I crossed it on 4th September, 1879. One horse, too 

 weak to travel, was bled, and his blood was mixed with flour and 

 made into a pudding. The HORSE DIED next day, and his flesh 

 was prepared for food. This left seventeen horses alive. The 

 STRENGTH OF THE MEN WAS DECLINING, and it is sad to record that 

 their morals also had been sapped by privation and toil, so that, 

 to guard against selfish peculation, it became necessary to watch 

 the horseflesh when it was drying in the sun. 



When the march to the north-west was resumed on \ih October, 

 JANE'S TABLELAND l was in sight. It appears in Arrowsmith's map, 

 issued in 1838. I saw this tableland on 4th September, 1879. 

 It is impossible, from Carron's journal, to account satisfactorily 

 for the whole of the 4th, 5th and 6th October (1848), but on 

 the afternoon of the 6th the CAMP was pitched near " a salt-water 

 creek," which is probably that now shown on the maps as 

 " SALTWATER CREEK," and which was known as such to the diggers 

 who rushed the " Coen " in 1878. My track from the Hann 

 River to Saltwater Creek, on 4th September, 1879, probably 

 coincided with Kennedy's. 



Near the explorers' camp of 6th October, a NATIVE CAMP was 

 inspected in the absence of its owners. There were seven or 

 eight conical huts built of saplings and lined inside with woven 

 strips of bamboo and covered outside with palm leaves. It was 

 obviously a camp designed to keep out rain in the wet season. 

 In the huts were stone ovens, fishing-nets and pieces of BOTTLE- 

 GLASS. 



On Jth, Stb and ()tb October, the march was continued NNW. 

 to " a river running into Princess Charlotte Bay, in lat. 14 30' S. 

 and long. 143 56'," which must have been the ANNIE RIVER, if 

 the latitude is correct. The longitude given is evidently about 



1 This conspicuous table was probably named by King, in the " Bathurst," in 1821. 



