Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/89

 left, who knows? with the mixed emotions of the fond mother mourning for her rickety offspring, the object of all her past toils, anxieties, and affections.

Both Burke and Wills, and McKinlay, had the novel addition of a troop of camels to the live stock of their respective expeditions. The Victoria Government, shortly before the departure of the former, had imported a number of camels from India, and their merits were thus promptly put on trial by the opportunity of the Victoria expedition. Of these, Burke selected six with which to push on from Cooper's Creek, leaving the others, together with the bulk of the expedition, behind on the way. These camels in fact, and but a single horse, were the sole attendants of his small party. McKinlay took four camels, in company of a goodly quadrupedal assemblage, consisting besides of twenty-four horses, twelve bullocks, and a hundred sheep. The camel disputes with the horse the palm of usefulness in the Australian expeditions. In powers of endurance the camel seemed quite the equal of his rival, but he was more unruly and troublesome, and very uncompanionable with the other animals, his fellow travellers. McKinlay found a decided convenience in the height of his back, as compared with that of the horse, in keeping the supplies of the party out of the water on the occasion of traversing the flooded parts of the march.