The commissioner waited, and then made a fresh start with six men and four baggage horses.  Midway between Dandenong and the Bunyip he passed the hut of Big Mat, a new settler from Melbourne, and obtained from him some information about the best route to follow.  It began to rain heavily, and it was difficult to ford the swollen creeks before arriving at the Big Hill.  At Shady Creek there was nothing for the horses to eat, and beyond it the ground became treacherous and full of crabholes.  At the Moe the backwater was found to be fully a quarter of a mile wide, encumbered with dead logs and scrub, and no safe place for crossing the creek could be found.  During the night the famishing horses tore open with their teeth the packages containing the provisions, and before morning all that was left of the flour, tea, and sugar was trodden into the muddy soil and hopelessly lost; not an ounce of food could be collected.  There was no game to be seen; every bird and beast seemed to have fled from the desolate ranges.  Mr. Tyers had been for many years a naval instructor on board a man-of-war, understood navigation and surveying, and, it is to be presumed, knew the distance he had travelled and the course to be followed in returning to Port Philip; but there were valleys filled with impenetrable scrub, creeks often too deep to ford, and boundless morasses, so that the journey was made crooked with continual deviations.  If a black boy like McMillan’s Friday had accompanied the expedition, his native instinct would, at such a time, have been worth all the science in the world.

The seven men, breakfastless, turned their backs to Gippsland.  The horses were already weak and nearly useless, so they and all the tents and camp equipage were abandoned.  Each man carried nothing but his gun and ammunition.  All day long they plodded wearily through the bush—­wading the streams, climbing over the logs, and pushing their way through the scrub.  Only two or three small birds were shot, which did not give, when roasted, a mouthful to each man.

At night a large fire was made, and the hungry travellers lay around it.  Next morning they renewed their journey, Mr. Tyers keeping the men from straggling as much as he could, and cheering them with the hope of soon arriving at some station.  No game was shot all that day; no man had a morsel of food; the guns and ammunition seemed heavy and useless, and one by one they were dropped.  It rained at intervals, the clothing became soaked and heavy, and some of the men threw away their coats.  A large fire was again made at night, but no one could sleep, shivering with cold and hunger.

Next morning one man refused to go any further, saying he might as well die where he was.  He was a convict accustomed to life in the bush, and Mr. Tyers was surprised that he should be the first man to give way to despair, and partly by force and partly by persuasion he was induced to proceed.  About midday smoke was seen in the distance, and the hope of soon obtaining food put new life into the wayfarers.  But they soon made a long straggling line of march; the strongest in the front, the weakest in the rear.