Page:Nests and eggs of Australian birds 1901.djvu/21

 Thence their course was to Newcastle. The trip occupied over twelve months. The worst has to be told. In crossing a swollen river in an improvised punt, the primitive cart (which was merely a box on two wheels with a pair of shafts attached, and in which all the natural history collection was packed) capsized, and the greater portion was lost in the flood; while, to add to this misfortune, the powder they possessed became wet and useless, so that more collecting was out of the question. At this point, also, the blacks were very numerous and warlike, and an attack of scurvy added to the intrepid explorers' trouble.

The last and most ambitious trip cost Mr. Samuel White his life.

First he built a steamer at Port Adelaide, and after £500 was spent in England in machinery alone, it was found she was unsuitable for his purpose. Then he built a fore and aft schooner called the "Elsie" (named after his wife), and fitted her for a two years' cruise in the region of Cape York, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands. Some interesting collecting was accomplished at the Arus; but the crew, objecting to work in New Guinea, which was a dangerous quarter at that time, mutinied, locked Mr. White in his cabin, and turned the ship about, shaping a course for Thursday Island. The ship thus in their hands, the mutineers became overjoyed, broached the store of spirits and got intoxicated. Taking advantage of this state of affairs, Mr. J. Cockerell and Mr. F. W. Andrews (two of Mr. White's collectors), released him. With some difficulty the crew were secured, but not before they had smashed the binnacle.

Mr. White navigated his vessel back to Thursday Island, where the crew were tried and committed, the ringleaders, including the Captain and first mate, being remanded to Sydney. Leaving the vessel at Thursday Island, Mr. White took the first opportunity of returning to Sydney for a fresh crew. At Sydney he met his wife, and when looking for a suitable temporary residence was caught in a heavy thunderstorm, took a severe chill (possibly on account of his system having been run down by the worries of the expedition), died on the 16th November, 1880, and was buried in the Waverley Cemetery.

Disaster followed disaster. The vessel, lying at Thursday Island, Cape York, was pillaged; the collections of a lifetime were knocked down and scattered under the auctioneer's hammer at Adelaide; and, most deplorable of all (next to the ornithologist's untimely death), some of Mr. White's numerous diaries, which no doubt it was his intention to eventually publish, and which must have contained a vast fund of