8 
NORTH AUSTRALIAN EXPEDITION. 
[Nov. 9, 1857. 
a crane, or a few ducks or cockatoos, all which were accounted 
good feeding by the party ; while the snakes, which were just as 
good, fell to the share of Fahey and myself. 
On the 9th of May we reached the main camp, which Mr. Wilson 
had entrenched during our absence. The schooner had been taken 
down the river and laid on a bank to complete her repairs, but 
nearly all her crew were more or less disabled by scurvy, and the 
carpenter had died. A good understanding had subsisted between 
the party in camp and the natives, except on one occasion when, I 
believe, spears had been thrown and a shot fired, which had wounded 
one of them in the arm. 
Our rations had hitherto consisted of flour and salt pork, the latter 
having been so wasted by the sun that ten 4 lb. pieces, when 
weighed, amounted only to 8 lbs., but, nevertheless, had to be issued 
at their nominal and not their real value. Mr. Gregory now took a 
6 lb. tin of preserved beef, and, kneading as much flour into it, 
made biscuits, which proved so satisfactory that he worked up a 
large supply for the next journey. 
I was mostly employed in the boats conveying surplus stores to 
the schooner, which was about 35 miles down the river ; and land- 
ing opposite on one occasion to meet a party of natives, one of them, 
after selling spears to one of our men, took them out of the boat 
again ; they also attempted to steal a tomahawk, but did not suc- 
ceed, and one tried to pass his hand behind me and catch the 
arm with which I held my pistol. Another snatched the gun 
carried by Adams, but the sailor, being a powerful man, wrested 
it from him, and would have shot one of them, had he been per- 
mitted. 
On Saturday, the 21st of June, Mr. Gregory, accompanied by 
his brother ; the surgeon, Mr. Elsey ; the botanist, Dr. Mueller ; 
and three men, with thirty-four horses, seven of which were re- 
served for the saddle, left camp for the Gulf of Carpentaria, having 
ordered me to take charge of the remaining detachment, and proceed 
with the schooner to Coepang, in the island of Timor, for provisions. 
After this I was to meet him in the Gulf of Carpentaria, at the folk 
of the Albert Eiver, just above the highest point reached by the 
boats of H.M.S. Beagle. 
In passing down the river I observed an alligator on the Horse- 
shoe Flat, near Curiosity Peak ; and going ashore with Mr. 
Humphery, the second overseer, we killed the animal, which was 
incapable of moving quickly on a level surface. 
We took in water from Mr. Gregory’s well, and wood from 
alongside, and the sailors gathered the fruit of the gouty-stem-tree, 
