On the 21st I moved over to the Darling; and found a number of natives at the camp, and amongst them the old Boocolo of Williorara, who was highly delighted at our return.
Mr. Piesse had constructed a large and comfortable hut of boughs--which was much cooler than canvass. In this we made ourselves comfortable, and I hoped that the numerous and more generous supplies of eatables and drinkables than those to which we had been accustomed would conduce to our early restoration to health. I could not but fancy that the berries Mr. Browne had procured for me, and of which I had taken many, were beginning to work beneficially--although I was still unable to move. As I proposed remaining stationary until after Christmas Day, I deemed it advisable to despatch messengers with letters for the Governor, advising him of my safety, and to relieve the anxiety of my family and friends. Mr. Browne accordingly made an agreement with two natives, to take the letter-bag to the Anabranch of the Darling, and send it on to Lake Victoria by other natives, who were to be rewarded for their trouble. For this service our messengers were to receive two blankets and two tomahawks, and the bag being closed they started off with it. I had proposed to Mr. Browne to be himself the bearer of it, but he would not leave me, even now. In order, therefore, to encourage the messengers, I gave them in advance the tomahawks they were to have received on their return. Our tent was generally full of natives; some of them very fine young men, especially the two sons of the Boocolo. Topar made his appearance two or three days after our arrival, but Toonda was absent on the Murray: the former, however, having been detected in attempting a theft, I had him turned out of the tent and banished the camp. The old Boocolo came daily to see us, and as invariably laid down on the lower part of my mattrass.
On the 23rd I sent Mr. Stuart to verify his former bearings on Scrope's Range, and Mr. Browne kindly superintended the chaining of the distance between a tree I had marked on the banks of the Darling and Sir Thomas Mitchell's last camp. This tree was about a quarter of a mile below the junction of the Williorara, and had cut on it, (G. A. E., Dec. 24, 1843,) the distance between the two points was three miles and 20 chains.
The 25th being Christmas Day, I issued a double allowance to the men, and ordered that preparations should be made for pushing down the river on the following morning. About 2 p.m. we were surprised at the return of our two messengers, who insisted that they had taken the letter-bag to the point agreed upon, although it was an evident impossibility that they could have done so. I therefore evinced my displeasure and refused to give them the blankets--for which, nevertheless, they greatly importuned me. Mr. Browne, however, explained to the Boocolo why I refused, and charged the natives with having secreted it somewhere or other. On this there was a long consultation with the natives, which terminated in the Boocolo's two sons separating from the others, and talking together for a long time in a corner of my hut; they then came forward and said, that my decision was perfectly just, for that the men had not been to the place agreed upon, but had left the bag of letters with a tribe on the Darling, and therefore, that they had been fully rewarded by the present of the tomahawks. This decided opinion settled the dispute at once, and the parties quietly acquiesced.
I had, as stated, been obliged to turn Topar out of my tent, and expel him the camp for theft, but at the same time Mr. Browne explained to the natives why I did so, and told them that I should in like manner expel any other who so transgressed, and they appeared fully to concur in the justice of my conduct. There is no doubt indeed but that they punish each other for similar offences, although perhaps the moral turpitude of the action is not understood by them.
The Darling at this time had ceased to flow, and formed a chain of ponds. The Williorara was quite dry from one end to the other, as were the lagoons and creeks in the neighbourhood. The natives having cleared the river of the fish that had been brought down by the floods, now subsisted for the most part on herbs and roots of various kinds, and on the caterpillar of the gum-tree moth, which they procured out of the ground with their switches, having a hook at the end. I do not think they could procure animal food in the then state of the country, there being no ducks or kangaroos in the neighbourhood, in any great quantity at all events.
I thus early began to feel the benefit of a change of diet in the diminished rigidity of my limbs, and therefore entertained great hopes that I should yet be able to ride into Adelaide. The men too generally began to recover from their fatigues, but both Mr. Browne and Mr. Stuart continued to complain of shooting pains in their limbs. The party and the animals however being sufficiently recruited to enable us to resume our progress homewards, we broke up our camp at the junction of the Williorara on the 26th of the month as I had proposed, under more favourable circumstances than we could have expected, the weather being beautifully fine and the temperature pleasant. When I was carried out of my tent to the cart, I was surprised to see the verdure of that very ground against the barrenness of which I had had to declaim the preceding year; I mean the flats of the Williorara, now covered with grass, and looking the very reverse of what they had done before; so hazardous is it to give an opinion of such a country from a partial glimpse of it. The incipient vegetation must have been brought forth by flood or heavy rains.
We passed two tribes of natives, with whom we staid for a short time as the old Boocolo was with us. Amongst these natives we did not notice the same disproportion in the sexes as in the interior, but not only amongst these tribes but with those of Williorara and Cawndilla, we observed that many had lost an eye by inflammation from the attacks of flies. I was really surprised that any of them could see, for most assuredly it is impossible to conceive anything more tormenting than those brutes are in every part of the interior.
On the 27th we passed two of our old encampments, and halted after a journey of 16 miles in the close vicinity of a tribe of natives, about fifty in number, the majority of whom were boys as mischievous as monkeys, and as great thieves too, but we reduced them to some kind of order by a little patience. The Darling had less water than in the previous year before the flood, but its flats were covered with grass, of which hundreds of tons might have been cut, so that our cattle speedily began to improve in condition.
About this time the weather was exceedingly oppressive, and heavy thunder-clouds hung about, but no rain fell.