Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/164

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
124
TRACKS ACROSS AUSTRALIA.

altogether. No rest for the wicked, "Ora pro nobis." Very uneasy, all of us, about Blanchewater detachment.

28th. At daylight set to work after breakfast at the well; had to do all the work ourselves, governor being in camp; wished him away. We set to, however, with a will, and soon accomplished the feat, making it full ten feet deep, and about three times the size, the water rising from south-east corner, and almost too fast for us to bale out and work too. The soil through which we dug before obtaining water was partly a mixture of light-coloured yellow clay and sand, next three and a half feet gypsum and blue clay, and at the bottom fine sand, through which the water pours in from all sides now it is finished.

29th. News this morning at daylight of the Blanchewater detachment brought in by some blacks. They were at a creek called "Karadinti." They arrived at 9·30, all well, and we were very happy to see them; they brought us news that Howitt and party had found the remains of Burke and Wills at Cooper's Creek; also that they had found the only survivor of that ill-fated expedition (King) living with blacks on Coopers Creek. There is no necessity to mention here what they told us on their return, "or what we read in the Adelaide newspapers they brought us; the circumstances are now so well known. It certainly