Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/448

 THE RETURN HOME—PORT DENISON TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

the expeditionary party are enjoying their short respite at the station of Messrs. Harvey and Somers, and doing ample justice to the roast-beef they had so often consumed in imagination, when in reality only a tough old camel was between their hungry teeth, we shall make a digression to relate an interesting occurrence connected with the time and the place. About six months after the party's arrival, and a little to the north of their present quarters, a man suddenly presented himself to two shepherds at the outpost of a sheep-station. Quite naked, and of a reddish yellow hue, he was seen to be no aboriginal native. On the shepherds seizing their fire-arms, under a sense of possible