it would ill become me to add
anything to the artless narrative of the faithful and true-hearted
Jackey, who having tended his last moments, and closed his eyes, was the
first, perhaps the most disinterested, bewailer of his unhappy fate.

...

STATEMENT OF JACKEY-JACKEY.

MADE BY HIM ON BOARD THE ARIEL, AND WRITTEN DOWN BY DR. VALLACK.

I started with Mr. Kennedy from Weymouth Bay for Cape York, on the 13th
November, 1848, accompanied by Costigan, Dunn, and Luff, leaving eight
men at the camp, at Weymouth Bay. We went on till we came to a river
which empties itself into Weymouth Bay. A little further north we crossed
the river; next morning a lot of natives camped on the other side of the
river. Mr. Kennedy and the rest of us went on a very high hill and came
to a flat on the other side and camped there; I went on a good way next
day; a horse fell down a creek; the flour we took with us lasted three
days; we had much trouble in getting the horse out of the creek; we went
on, and came out, and camped on the ridges; we had no water. Next morning
went on and Luff was taken ill with a very bad knee; we left him behind,
and Dunn went back again and brought him on; Luff was riding a horse
named Fiddler; then we went on and camped at a little creek; the flour
being out this day we commenced eating horse-flesh, which Carron gave us
when we left Weymouth Bay; as we went on we came on a small river, and
saw no blacks there; as we proceeded we gathered nondas, and lived upon
them and the meat; we stopped at a little creek and it came on raining,
and Costigan shot himself; in putting his saddle under the tarpaulin, a
string caught the trigger and the ball went in under the right arm and
came out at his back under the shoulder; we went on this morning all of
us, and stopped at another creek in the evening, and the next morning we
killed a horse named Browney, smoked him that night and went on next day,
taking as much of the horse as we could with us, and went on about a mile
and then turned back again to where we killed the horse, because Costigan
was very bad and in much pain; we went back again because there was no
water; then Mr. Kennedy and I had dinner there, and went on in the
afternoon leaving Dunn, Costigan, and Luff at the creek. This was at
Pudding-pan Hill, near Shelburne Bay. Mr. Kennedy called it Pudding-pan
Hill. We left some horse-meat with the three men at Pudding-pan Hill, and
carried some with us on a packho