has probably been previously overestimated.  The next forenoon was spent in surveying and making what measurements could be made in the absence of the instruments lost in the upset.  At noon, after having spent just twenty-four hours at Grand Falls, the party turned back.  The very fact of having succeeded, made distance shorter and fatigue more easily borne, so they travelled along at a rattling pace, surveying at times and little thinking of the disaster that had befallen them.  Camp was made on the river bank, beneath one of the terraces which lined both sides.

Saturday Aug. 15th, the march back to the boat cache was resumed.  Towards night, as they approached the place, smoke was seen rising from the ground, and fearing evil, the men broke into a run during the last two miles.  As Cary’s journal puts it:  “We arrived at our camp to find boat and stores burnt and the fire still smoking and spreading.  Cole arrives first, and as I come thrashing through the bushes he sits on a rock munching some burnt flour.  He announces with an unsteady voice:  ‘Well, she’s gone.’  We say not much, nothing that indicates poor courage, but go about to find what we can in the wreck, and pack up for a tramp down river.  In an hour we have picked out everything useful, including my money, nails, thread and damaged provisions, and are on the way down river hoping to pass the rapids before dark, starting at 5.”

Their position was certainly disheartening.  They were one hundred and fifty miles from their nearest cache, and nearly three hundred from the nearest settlement, already greatly used up, needing rest and plenty of food; in a country that forbade any extended tramping inland to cut off corners, on a river in most places either too rough for a raft or with too sluggish a current to make rafting pay; and above all, left with a stock of food comprising one quart of good rice, brought back with them, three quarts of mixed meal, burnt flour and burnt rice, a little tea, one can of badly dried tongue, and one can of baked beans that were really improved by the fire.  Add to this some three dozen matches and twenty-five cartridges, blankets and what things they had on the tramp to the falls, and the list of their outfit, with which to cover the three hundred miles, is complete.  There was no time to be wasted, and that same night six miles were made before camping.  The next day the battle for life began.  It was decided that any game or other supplies found on the way should be used liberally, while those with which they started were husbanded.  This day several trout were caught, line and hooks being part of each man’s outfit, and two square meals enjoyed, which proved the last for a week.  A raft was made that would not float the men and baggage, and being somewhat discouraged on the subject of rafting by the failure, another was not then attempted, and the men continued tramping.  Following the river, they found its general course between the rapids and Lake Wanimikapo, S.S.E.  During part of that day and all the next, they followed in the track of a large panther, but did not get in sight of him.  Acting on the principle that they should save their strength as much as possible, camps were gone into fairly early and were well made; and this night, in spite of the desperate straits they were in, both men enjoyed a most delightful sleep.