Macquarie Harbour . 
3 69 
The sufferings of the party were much aggravated by 
the want of shelter from the inclemency of the weather ; 
they had not even a sail to make a tent of; a few boughs 
of the tea-tree shaped into a break-wind formed their only 
protection against the torrents of rain, which nevertheless 
drenched the little bedding allowed to them. There ap¬ 
pearing no prospect of relief, five or six started with the 
intention of reaching Hobart Town over land: none 
however succeeded, they were all stopped at the Huon 
River, which they had no means of crossing; and they 
were afterwards picked up in the last state of exhaustion 
by a sawyer’s boat. 
A man named Morgan, one of the crew, set about 
building a boat or coracle, in the hopes of reaching 
in it some of the settled places higher up the channel. 
It was about twelve feet long, the keel, gunwales, 
stern and stern-post were formed of the wattle-tree, with 
smaller pieces for timbers: this composed the frame¬ 
work. It was covered with two hammocks, next painted 
or coated with boiled soap mixed with a little rosin, 
which one of the men happened fortunately to have by 
him. The little barque thus completed was duly launched ; 
and Morgan and a man named Popjoy undertook to navi¬ 
gate her. Frail as she was, she weathered a strong breeze 
from the southward the night she left. Indeed the 
weather was so severe that, giving her up for lost, a 
second boat was contemplated. A better fate, however, 
attended the little cockleshell, for on the second day 
after her departure she reached Partridge Island, and 
there found the ships Orelia and Georgiana. The men 
were forwarded to town, and a pilot with relief was sent 
to the poor sufferers at Recherche Bay. Captain Butler, 
the late Commandant, at Macquarie Harbour, happened 
to be on board the Georgiana on his way to India when 
the coracle reached the vessel. 
VOL. i. no. v. 
B B 
