FIRST EXPEDITION 487 



fancy they had in some way got it into their heads that they were 

 >ound to follow us as prisoners of war. 



A low, table-topped hill of sandstone now appeared about a 

 nile ahead of us, to W. 26 N., and I made for it in order to have 

 look out for landmarks. We had scarcely started when Macdonald 

 Informed me that two of the horses were getting weak, while a 

 hird had fallen a long way behind, and was in a lather of perspiration 

 nd could hardly be pulled and pushed along by Grainer and Willie 

 n foot. They had taken off his very light pack and put it on 

 nother horse. I was under the impression that the horses must 

 .ave eaten some POISONOUS GRASS OR HERB. The superiority of 

 uch of the horses as have youth and breeding on their side comes 

 ut conspicuously in such a strait as we were now in. Not much 

 ould be expected from the best of them, however. 



The country we had travelled over for three days was nothing 



ut a WOODED SAHARA. The blacks had just burned what grass it 



sually bears. Once in 10 miles or so we crossed a wet bottom with 



little grass which had escaped the fire. But for these grassy 



atches the horses must have died of starvation. 



It will be readily understood that I gazed from the hill with 

 ielings of considerable anxiety for some change in the nature 

 f the country. Westward (our proposed course) as far as the eye 

 Duld reach, nothing but low, flat land was to be seen, and there 

 as nothing to indicate an improvement in the character of the 

 egetation. With a heavy heart I admitted that to carry out my 

 rogramme had become impossible, and made up my mind that 

 ic first thing to be done was to find water and camp, to save the 

 iling horses ; and the second, to strike the Normanby River or 

 e Coen track and go back to the nearest point of the Palmer 

 .oad, spell the horses, and perhaps buy a few more to replace those 

 t were unfit to travel. 



Turning to the south-west (magnetic), in which direction I 

 ped to find the Normanby at its nearest point, we came in I mile 

 a water-hole in a sandy gully, with a little green picking for the 

 TSCS. (CAMP 25 : Moreton Bay ash, broad arrow, J. 25.) 



August 28. Left Camp 25 at 8 a.m. and kept (magnetic) 

 uth-west. In 2 miles we reached the NORMANBY RIVER a 

 ;gnificent sheet of deep water a furlong or more in breadth, 

 nked by chains of lagoons, with sweet grass and a sort of four- 

 ved clover which the starving horses attacked with great relish, 

 ope revived, for I could see that a few days' rest and feeding here 

 ':ght be the salvation of the poor beasts of burden. We camped on 

 -goon on the right bank of the river (CAMP 26). In the afternoon 

 caught some fish, and the black boys shot two pelicans, which we 

 e thankfully. 



Grainer had been, in 1878, part of the way to the Coen rush, 

 d described the blazed track as crossing the Normanby 5 miles 



