Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/420

 24th. Cutting up and jerking Mr, Buckeye. Worked up course and distance with Mr. McKinlay (dead reckoning remember). I found we ought to be some forty miles from the Burdekin River, the nearest point, having travelled 260 miles since we crossed the Leichhardt Falls. Camp is not a nice one, the grass up to our necks nearly. The country well wooded with iron-bark trees. Middleton and Kirby still continue very unwell, they being continually sick. We are obliged to cook in turns, for our cook is ill also. Some of the horses got lamed.

25th. The dew very heavy last night, and ice in our pannikins about the thickness of half-a-crown. The meat is drying well, as the are hot. It is always rather dull in camp during this process. Mending what we have, which is little enough, and very little to mend with.

26th. In camp all day looking after the meat, except early in the morning, then after 10, then 4 , when I visited the camels. Heavy fog indeed, and got fearfully wet going through the high grass, but had no change of raiment, so were obliged to dry our clothes on us. Men still very sick. We shall start in the morning, as the meat is jerked, and weighed sixty-nine pounds, with six pounds of beef, seventy-five pounds; about six days' grub, so that if we don't hit a station in that time another nag must die.