Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/219

 17th. The cart is off, and we are only waiting till it gets a certain distance ahead, so that it may not be too late in coming into camp after us, as the cart carries the commissariat, and it won't do to let that be much behind in arriving after us poor famished mortals.

At 10·45 all off; horses and camels with their attendants. Blacks all around us to say "Goodbye;" they lined the side of the lake, jabbering their farewells; but there was no cambric fluttering in the breeze, there was no fair one who had lost her heart taking a last fond look of the gay deceiver. I can assure you, gentle reader, we all left free and unencumbered with the sins consequent on civilization. There is an encampment of 300 or 400 up the creek; they could soon make short work of us if they knew how we travelled. Twelve to fourteen miles to-day, nothing but sand hills and flooded flats all sandy.

Here during our long stay we got up a newspaper called the "Dakoo Review"—Mr, Hodgkinson editor,—the leading article of which I give with one or two other contributions.

"CHRISTMAS DAY.

"No snowdrift hides from view the face of the earth, no frost holds in its adamantine chain the waters; while bright as may be the stars, and deeply blue the sky, their splendour is not derived