Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/437

 hills on the right. Here we are, poor forlorn explorers, left with only two pack-horses and one camel! Yes, reduced to this extremity from twenty-six horses, twelve bullocks, one hundred sheep, and four camels.

27th. Spelled here to boil down old horse. Mr. McKinlay, Middleton, and Wylde went up river to see if they could find a crossing, for we cannot go any further down this side, as it is completely blocked up with boulders and rocks, to say nothing of hills too steep for the beasts to climb up. Instead of finding what they wanted, what do you suppose they saw? Three or four full-grown alligators! Pleasant that, as we shall have to swim the river, and raft the things across it; rather took away our appetites when we heard of it. One of these brutes eighteen or twenty feet long. The governor says he gave them a shot or two.

We have a raft to make to-morrow, and little or no wood to do it with; there is one pretty good tree and some dry stuff. We put the water-bags and "billies" (tin saucepans) inverted underneath to make it as buoyant as possible.

28th. Now comes the tug of war; to be or not to be, that is the question. The raft is loaded with a few things, as much as it can bear, with grass at the bottom to keep the goods from the water, and macintosh cover over all. Palmer, Hodgkinson, Wylde, and self, naked in the water