CHAPTER XLII 

 THE JARDINE BROTHERS' EXPEDITION, 1864-5, continued 



FROM THE EINASLEIGH RIVER TO THE MOUTH OF THE 

 STATEN RIVER (DE FACTO) 



WAS THE EINASLEIGH THE LYND ? RECONNAISSANCE BY THE BROTHERS. MAJOR- 

 MITCHELLING. OPHTHALMIA. WAS BYERLEY CREEK THE LYND ? PROGRESS OF 

 THE MAIN EXPEDITION. DISASTROUS FIRE AND Loss OF RATIONS, ETC. LOSSES 

 OF HORSES AND CATTLE. RECONNAISSANCE DOWN COCKBURN CREEK AND NASSAU 

 RIVER (DE FACTO) TO MARAMIE CREEK. INTERLACING MOUTHS OF GREAT RIVERS 

 FALLING INTO GULF OF CARPENTARIA. BACK TO THE MAIN EXPEDITION, NOW 

 CAMPED ON COCKBURN CREEK. FIGHTING WITH NATIVES. DOWN COCKBURN 

 CREEK AND THE NASSAU RIVER (DE FACTO). CAMPS 22 TO 26. SCORPIONS AND 

 MOSQUITOES. CAMPS 27 TO 35. DEATH OF STALLION FROM SNAKE BITE OR 

 POISON PLANT. " LYND " QUESTION SETTLED. THE TRUE POSITION OF THE 

 NASSAU RIVER OF THE EARLY DUTCH NAVIGATORS. 



THE Brothers, according to their diary, accompanied by 

 Eulah, left Camp 13, on the EINASLEIGH, on 24^ October, 

 1864, and after majormitchelling 1 to the north, north- 

 east and north-west, returned on the 2jth, having failed 

 to find the LYND RIVER. (SEE MAP L.) They had made about 

 40 miles of northing and had struck the creek which they named 

 BYERLEY CREEK (now mapped as the RED RIVER) and another 

 which they named MAROON CREEK, and which appears in modern 

 maps as the head of the STATEN RIVER. 8 This STATEN RIVER, 

 dejacto, and which will, no doubt, be so called for all time, is 

 de jure, the NASSAU, one of its mouths (17 24' S. lat.) having 

 been named the NASSAU REVIER by Jan Carstenszoon on 26th April, 

 1623. BYERLEY CREEK, or Red River, is a tributary of the STATEN 

 RIVER, dejacto. 



Had the Brothers struck north-east from their loth or nth 

 Camp, on the Einasleigh, they would have reached LEICHHARDT'S 

 LYND RIVER in less than 30 miles. Beyond Camp n, the 

 chance was lost, as the courses of the two rivers diverge, the 

 Einasleigh to the west and the Lynd to north-north-west. 



1 This expressive verb, indicative of a method of exploration favoured by Major 

 (afterwards Sir Thomas) Mitchell, was in common use among Australian bushmen in the 

 " seventies," when I first made their acquaintance. R. L. J. 



a Carstenszoon spelt the name Staten, which spelling, except in quotations, I retain. 

 In modern Dutch, the double " a " is correct, but in 1623 spelling was no more fixed 

 in Holland than it was in England. 



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