Note 9 — XVIII.

One of the most appalling of these was that undertaken in April, 1848, by surveyor E. B. Kennedy, along the strip of land between Cape York and Rockingham Bay in Northern Australia, whose melancholy fate is described by one of the survivors, Mr. Carron, a botanist, in a not less simple than affecting manner. "When we first started everything went on well, and the most brilliant anticipations were indulged, although there were numerous obstacles to be overcome, and the few natives we encountered were invariably hostile. Gradually, however, provisions began to fail; sickness and loss of strength succeeded, while the prospect of reaching our goal grew less and less. The further north we got, as the hot season was now setting in, the more frequently did we find the forest rivulets dried up, so that we had for days to bear up against an almost maddening thirst. The horses which accompanied the expedition gradually sank from exhaustion." Almost every day Carron's journal mentions one or the other horse giving in of fatigue, when they were compelled for want of further provision to eat its flesh during the next two days. That of the last was conveyed along by the travellers in sacks, made from the skin of the animal itself. Whenever they encountered natives, these proved hostile, and assailed the little caravan with spears. Some of them indeed were more friendly, and traded with the travellers, but less out of sincere hospitality than with the hope of taking them in, and getting them unawares into their power. Thus, on one occasion a number of tall, well-made, powerful men and women made their appearance, and offered them some fish, which they themselves refused to eat owing to its putrified state. Hardly had the travellers approached it, unsuspicious of evil, when a cloud of spears cleft the air with a whistling noise, and the scene, hitherto so friendly and peaceable, became at once a scene of blood and confusion. However, the spear-men seemed to have no great dexterity; they usually missed their mark, whereas the flints and double-barrels of the whites did deadly execution. One however proved more fatal than the rest, and killed Mr. Kennedy, the chief of the party. They were now only a few days distant from Cape York, the goal of their labours, whence a Government ship was to convey the leader and his party back to Sydney. But the survivors were also all but exhausted with the terrible fatigues of their journey. Only three out of the fourteen survived, and these were reduced almost to skeletons. Carron's elbow-bone of the right arm, and also the bone of the right hip, were through the skin! (Narrative of an Expedition undertaken under the direction of the late Mr. Assistant Surveyor, E. B. Kennedy, for the Exploration of the Country lying between Rockingham Bay and Cape York; by W. Carron, one of the survivors of the Expedition. Sydney, 1849.)

Still more lamentable was the fate of the last and most important of these expeditions, which in 1861 succeeded in crossing the Australian continent from the north frontier of South Australia to Carpentaria, and back to Cooper's Creek, in which, unfortunately, the travellers missed the dépôt troop that had been sent to their assistance, and the entire party, including Messrs. Burke, Wills, and Gray, lost their lives, only one of their number, King, escaping to tell their sad fate. (Vide Appendix.)