288 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



were seen, but no settlers were met with. The last of the CAMELS 

 was killed for food on 3ist July and the horses were by this time 

 reduced to nineteen. This day he and his party buried " everything 

 but the clothes they stood in." 



On 2nd August, 1862, McKinlay reached civilisation at HARVEY 

 AND SOMERS' STATION on the BOWEN RIVER (a tributary of the 

 Burdekin). Five miles further they reached STRATHMORE STATION, 

 where Messrs. Sellheim l and Toussaint, the owners, entertained 

 them hospitably for a week. Near the station was a camp of 

 NATIVE POLICE, under a white sergeant. Troopers were sent back 

 for the valuables buried on the Burdekin. 



The party embarked at PORT DENISON on ijth August, 1862, 

 in the " Ben Bolt" (80 tons), Captain Tom McEwin, for ROCK- 

 HAMPTON. 



Incidentally, it may be mentioned that Port Denison was 

 discovered by the " Burdekin Mouth " party in 1860, and Bowen 

 was founded in 1861. 



Westgarth refers to the discovery of JIMMY MORRILL about 

 six months after McKinlay's arrival at Port Denison. Morrill 

 was the sole survivor of twenty-one men who left the wrecked 

 " Peruvian " in 1846 and landed from a raft on the north side of 

 Cape Cleveland, in which neighbourhood he lived among the blacks 

 for the next sixteen years. Merrill's experiences form the subject 

 of a pamphlet written by himself, and of considerable ethnological 

 value. (James Morrill. A Sketch of a Residence among 'the 

 Aboriginals of North Queensland for Seventeen Tears. Brisbane, 

 Courier Office, 1863, 8vo, pp. 24.) 



1 P. F. Sellheim, afterwards a Police Magistrate and Goldfield Warden, and Under- 

 secretary for Mines. 



