346 
ABANDON BAGGAGE. 
coats, jackets, and other articles of dress were thrown 
away ; a single spare shirt and pair of boots and 
socks being all that were kept for each, besides our 
blankets and the things we stood in, and which con- 
sisted only of trowsers, shirt, and shoes. Most of 
our pack-saddles, all our horse-shoes, most of our 
kegs for holding water, all our buckets but one, our 
medicines, some of our fire-arms, a quantity of ammu- 
nition, and a variety of other things, were here 
abandoned. Among the many things that we were 
compelled to leave behind there was none that I re- 
gretted parting with more than a copy of Captain 
Sturt’s Expeditions, which had been sent to me by 
the author to Fowler’s Bay to amuse and cheer me 
on the solitary task I had engaged in ; it was the 
last kind offering of friendship from a highly 
esteemed friend, and nothing but necessity would 
have induced me to part with it. Could the donor, 
however, have seen the miserable plight we were 
reduced to, he would have pitied and forgiven an 
act that circumstances alone compelled me to. 
After all our arrangements were made, and every 
thing rejected that we could do without, I found 
that the loads of the horses were reduced in the 
aggregate about two hundred pounds ; but this being 
divided among ten, relieved each only a little. 
Myself, the overseer, and the King George’s Sound 
native invariably walked the whole way, but the two 
younger natives were still permitted to ride alter- 
nately upon one of the strongest horses. As our 
