50 
Report of the Expedition 
and geological collections; and my plans of returning over land, 
cutting off the angles of my route, and keeping more to the west¬ 
ward, were frustrated. 
When our flour, our tea, our salt, our sugar, were gone, we 
lived on dried beef and water, and we lived well on it, as long as 
the beef was good ; but at the latter part of the journey the beef 
got bad, as it was very poor, and of knocked-up beasts, and as 
the moist sea breeze made it very liable to taint. Fortunately 
the game became abundant round the gulf, and we caught, for 
instance, in August fifteen, and in September sixteen emus, every 
one of which provided meat for a day. 
At the head of the South Alligator, black fellows came up to 
us, and we exchanged presents with them. They gave me the 
red ochre, which they seemed to consider as the best of their run. 
At the commencement of the plain, a large tribe of black fellows 
came to our camp, and one of them pointed to the north-west, 
when we asked where he got his tomahawk and a piece of shawl 
from. They knew Pitche Nelumbo (Van Diemen's Gulf). At 
the big Pandanus Swamp another tribe of black fellows guided us 
over the swamp, and behaved very kind. They used the words 
peri good (very good) no good, Mankiterra (Malays). At the 
mouth of the East Alligator, Eooanberry’s and Minorelli’s tribe 
were equally hospitable and kind. We met another tribe in 
travelling up the river, and at its head. The latter were however 
noisy, boisterous, and inclined to theft. At the north bank of the 
river we met Bilge’s tribe, Bilge being the most important per¬ 
sonage amongst them. At Nywall’s Lagoon, Nywall treated us 
with imberbi (the root of a species of convolvulus), and two black 
fellows guided us two days farther. At Mountnorris Bay we met 
Baki Baki, and at Raffle’s Bay Bill White’s tribe; and Bill White 
himself guided us into the settlement. 
At Eooanberry’s tribe we first heard the question, “what’s 
your name?” and the name for white men “ Balanda.” At 
Nywall’s tribe they asked for flour, bread, rice, tobacco, and one 
of them had even a pipe. It is difficult to express our joy when 
English words were heard again, and when every sign which the 
black fellows made proved that we were near the end of our jour- 
