Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/54

 ill-reputed Torres Straits. The timely arrival of the "Victoria," however, enabled the "Firefly" to get afloat again, and she was taken round to the Albert. Ascending that river twenty miles to a convenient landing-place, a depôt was formed, and the horses, by this time reduced to twenty-five by the loss of some of their number in the late mishap, were safely unshipped, and the expedition was begun on the 17th October.

Landsborough's instructions had been that ho should proceed in a south-westerly direction towards Stuart's Central Mount, and accordingly he makes a start upon that course, following up the Albert to its head. Thence diverging a little more to the westward, passing through a very dry country, and over a number of creeks, most of them waterless, as it was far on in the dry season, he is at last arrested by a total failure of water. Leaving this country, which he named Barkly's Tableland, and turning more towards the south along the river named the Herbert, he is compelled by the threatening indications of the natives, to return with his small party to the depot. His company consisted but of two colonists besides himself and two aborigines. He had succeeded in attaining to about 210 miles from the coast, and had passed through what was, on the whole, a most promising country, well deserving the name of one of its districts, the "Plains