WALKER 285 



had to give it up, owing to the obliteration of the hoof-marks by 

 rain. His exact course from this point to Port Denison, which 

 he reached on $ih May, cannot be traced, as his journal, as printed 

 by the Royal Geographical Society, ends with his meeting with 

 Captain Norman. Westgarth's map in " McKinlay's Tracks " 

 sketchily indicates Walker's homeward route, and if the sketch 

 is correct, Walker's route must have been partly up the Lynd 

 (and it is difficult to imagine what could have taken him 

 there) and on, via Bowen, to Rockhampton. On the other hand, 

 Landsborough saw TRACKS which there was every reason to believe 

 to be WALKER'S on what he named WALKER'S CREEK, between 

 Richmond and Hughenden, so that the probability is that Walker 

 ran up the Flinders and struck eastward for Port Denison, crossing 

 the heads of the Thomson and Cape Rivers, and the Belyando and 

 Bowen Rivers on his way to Port Denison. 



Walker's correspondence with Captain Norman shows that his 

 first intention was to make for Adelaide via Eyre Creek on the 

 conclusion of his task of tracking the hoof-marks of the camels. 

 Seeing where he left the camel track, he probably argued that 

 Burke and Wills must have made good their return to Fort Cooper, 

 and he was probably influenced by considerations of his own chances 

 of not finding water on Eyre Creek in deciding in favour of the 

 Port Denison route. 



III. McKINLAY* 



JOHN McKiNLAY was born at Sandbank, on the Clyde, in 1819, 

 and settled in Australia when still a young man. McKinlay's 

 party (officially known as the South Australian Burke Relief Expedi- 

 tion) was composed of W. O. Hodgkinson (second in command), 

 afterwards Minister for Mines, Queensland ; John Davis ; Robert 

 Poole ; Middleton (camel driver) ; E. Palmer (bullock driver) ; Bell 

 and Wylde; and Frank, an aboriginal. It left ADELAIDE on i6th 

 August, 1861. The work of the expedition had already been done 

 by Howitt, although the news had not yet reached Adelaide. On 

 20th October, McKinlay found human remains (27 15' S. ; 

 140 E.), which must have been those of Gray, although, misled 

 by cock-and-bull stories told by the blacks in circumstantial detail, 

 he regarded them as evidence of the massacre of the whole of 

 Burke's party, followed by a cannibal orgy. He had a rather 

 serious encounter with the NATIVES three days later. Hodgkinson 

 was shortly afterwards sent back on a mission to Blanche Water 

 Station, in South Australia, and on his return, in about five weeks, 



1 " Diary of Mr. J. McKinlay, Leader of the Burke Relief Expedition fitted out by 

 the Government of South Australia," Proc. Roy. Geogr. Soc., Vol. XXXIII, p. 13. 



Tracks of McKinlay and Party across Australia, by John Davis, edited by William 

 Westgarth. London, 1862. 



Anniversary Address of the President of the Roy. Soc. Victoria (Sir Fredk. McCoy), 

 25th April, 1864. 



