on every side from the land, whilst the sea off-shore held myriad
dangers.

Kennedy landed from the Tam o'Shanter at the little point that still
bears the jovial name, and bade farewell to Owen Stanley in good spirits,
and with no dread premonitions. He was fresh from the sun-scorched plains
of the interior, and would confidently confront whatever might lie before
him. Scrub and swampy country delayed him on his way to the higher land
at the foot of the range, where he had hoped to find better travelling
country; but the foothills were serried with ravines and gullies, and the
sides clothed with the ever-present jungle. The horses and sheep,
unaccustomed to the sour grasses of the coast lands of northern
Australia, pined and rapidly wasted away. Their troubles were augmented
by acts of annoyance, and on one unfortunate occasion, of open hostility
on the part of the blacks.

By the 18th of July, a little over six weeks after they had left
Rockingham Bay, the sheep had been reduced from one hundred to fifty, and
the horses began to fail so rapidly that they had to abandon the carts,
while the men were becoming completely exhausted from the endless cutting
and hacking of the scrub. At length they surmounted the range, the
backbone of the peninsula, and on the western slope, amid the heads of
the rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria, made better progress.
Kennedy, however, adhered to his instructions to examine the eastern
slope, and recrossed the watershed, where troubles again came thick upon
him. One after another the horses began to give in, and owing to the
storekeeper's mismanagement, they were nearly out of provisions. On the
9th of December they reached Weymouth Bay, and Kennedy determined to form
a stationary camp, and leaving there the main body of his men, push
forward to Port Albany, whence he would send back the schooner that was
awaiting them with relief. He selected seven men whom he left in charge
of Carron, the naturalist, and with three men and the heroic Jacky-Jacky,
an aboriginal of New South Wales, he pushed on -- to his death.

Before the departure the last sheep was slaughtered, and its lean and
miserable carcase shared between the two parties; and with Carron,
Kennedy ascended a hill that commanded a prospect of the country lying to
the north, but could see nothing but rugged hills and black scrub. He
confided only to Carron his gloomy foreboding that he would never reach
Albany, so dishear