AND SEIZURE OF HIS STORES BY THE NATIVES.  MURDER OF HIS MEN.

After ascertaining that we were not so near as he hoped, and having reached the Gwydir and traced our route along its banks until he again recognised Mount Frazer, he returned at the end of the second day, when he found neither his tents nor his men to receive him, but a heap of various articles such as bags, trunks, harness, tea and sugar canisters, etc. piled over the dead bodies of his men, whose legs he, at length, perceived projecting.  The tents had been cut in pieces; tobacco and other articles lay about; and most of the flour had been carried off, although some bags still remained on the cart.  The two bullocks continued feeding near.  This spectacle must have appeared most appalling to Mr. Finch, uncertain, as he must have been, whether the eyes of the natives were not then upon him, while neither he nor his man possessed any means of defence!  Taking a piece of pork and some flour in a haversack, he hastened from the dismal scene; and by travelling all day, and passing the nights without fire, he most providentially escaped the natives, and had at length reached our camp.

DESTROY THE BOAT AND RETIRE FROM THE KARAULA.

Thus terminated my hopes of exploring the country beyond the Karaula, and I could not but feel thankful for the providential circumstance of Mr. Finch’s arrival, at the very moment I was about to proceed on that undertaking, trusting that I should find, in returning to this depot, the supplies which I expected him to bring.  We had now, on the contrary, an additional demand on our much exhausted stock of provisions.  The season when rain might be expected was approaching, and we had behind us two hundred miles of country subject to inundation, without a hill to which we could in such a case repair.  The soil was likely to become impassable after two days rain, and our cartwheels were represented by the carpenters to be almost unserviceable.  These considerations, and the hostile disposition of the natives in our rear, not only deterred me from crossing the Karaula, but seemed to require my particular attention to the journey homewards.  We had at least accomplished the main object of the expedition by ascertaining that there was no truth in The Bushranger’s report respecting the great river.

February 7.

The wheels of the carts requiring repair before we could commence our retreat, the carpenters were employed on this work until three P.M.  Our boat (emblem of our hopes!) was sunk in the deepest part of the Karaula.  The natives were heard approaching during the morning; and crows and hawks, hovering in the air, marked their place in the woods.  At length, I perceived them peeping at us from behind trees; but our feelings towards the aborigines were very different then from what they had been before we received the news brought by Mr. Finch, however innocent these people might be of the murder of his men.  I did not therefore invite their approach, and they were too cautious to be intrusive.  The wheels being repaired at three P.M. we turned our faces homewards, and exactly at sunset we reached the ponds where I had twice previously encamped.