HIS OWN FOOTSTEPS TRACED.

It appeared from Mr. Larmer’s map of Mr. Cunningham’s track that he had deviated from our line after crossing Bullock creek, and had proceeded about fourteen miles to the north-west where marks of his having tied up his horse and lain down induced the party to believe that he had there passed the first dreary night of his wandering.

From that point he appeared to have intended to return and, by the zigzag course he took, that he had either been travelling in the dark, or looking for his own track, that he might retrace it.  In this manner his steps actually approached within a mile of our route, but in such a manner that he appeared to have been going south while we were travelling north (on the 18th).  Thus he had continued to travel southward, or south-south-west, full 14 miles, crossing his own track not far from where he first quitted our route.  On his left he had the dry channel (Bullock creek) with the water-gumtrees (eucalypti) full in view, though without ever looking into it for water.* Had he observed this channel and followed it downwards he must have found our route; and had he traced it upwards he must have come upon the waterholes where I had an interview with the two natives, and thus, perhaps, have fallen in with me.  From the marks of his horse having been tied to four different trees at the extreme southern point which he reached, it appeared that he had halted there some time, or passed there the second night.  That point was not much more than half a mile to the westward of my track out on the 21st.  From it he had returned, keeping still more to the westward, so that he actually fell in with my track of the 19th, and appeared to have followed it backwards for upwards of a mile, when he struck off at a rightangle to the north-west.

(Footnote.  These trees being remarkable from their white shining trunks, resembling those of beech trees; a circumstance to which, as connected with the presence of water, I had just before drawn his attention.)

It was impossible to account for this fatal deviation, even had night, as most of the party supposed, overtaken him there.  It seemed that he had found my paper directing him to trace my steps backwards, and that he had been doing this where the paper marked N.E. had been found, and which I therefore considered a sort of reply to my note.  If we were right as to the nights, this must have taken place on the very day on which I had passed that way, and when my eye eagerly caught at every dark-coloured distant object in hopes of finding him!  After the deviation to the north-west it appears that Mr. Cunningham made some detours about a clear plain, at one side of which his horse had been tied for a considerable time, and where it is probable he had passed his third night, as there were marks where he had lain down in the long dry grass.  From this point only his horse’s tracks had been traced, not his own steps which had hitherto accompanied them; and from the twisting and turning of the course to where it lay dead, we supposed he had not been with the horse after it left this place.  The whip and straps seemed to have been trod off from the bridle-reins to which Mr. Cunningham was in the habit of tying his whip, and to which also the straps had been probably attached, to afford the animal more room to feed when fastened to trees.