Page:Northmost Australia volume 1.djvu/258

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FROM THE PALMER TO THE PASCOE
225


the mountain mass which I named the JANET RANGE in 1880. Individual points now appear on the chart, including SIMPSON HILL at the mouth of the Pascoe, BARRETT HILL (on the north end of which was Carron's depot), the ROUND BACK HILLS, near Cape Weymouth, MOUNT TOZER (the highest point, 1,953 feet), the " SOUTH " and "NORTH " PAPS, MOUNT DOBSON, MOUNT NELSON and the GODDARD HiLLS.[1] The names commemorate Kennedy's expedition, the voyage of the relief ship " Ariel " (1848), the voyage of the " Rattlesnake " and the administration of two Premiers of Queensland, Sir Horace Tozer and Sir Hugh Nelson.

Kennedy and Carron took stock of the PROVISIONS remaining on 13th November, which consisted of 46 Ib. of flour, 75 Ib. of dried horseflesh and I Ib. of tea. The consumption of flour since stock was taken on 23rd October had been at the rate of 07 Ib. per man per day.

The twenty-seven HORSES with which the expedition set out from Rockingham Bay had now been reduced to NINE. There were, apparently, twelve on 6th November, so that three are unaccounted for. They either died in the passage of the Janet Range, or Carron omitted to mention some deaths or losses when they took place.

KENNEDY TOOK with him SEVEN of the HORSES, the 75 Ib. of HORSEFLESH, 1 8 Ib. of FLOUR and half a pound of TEA. CARRON and his party were left with 28 Ib. of FLOUR, half a pound of TEA and two HORSES, which were to be killed for food as occasion required. He was instructed to make his provisions last for six weeks. Besides Carron, the party left at the depot consisted of Wall, Niblet, Taylor, Carpenter, Goddard, Mitchell and Douglas. Those eight men were to wait in camp for the relief which Kennedy hoped to bring them by water in fourteen days at the earliest. Kennedy expected to meet H.M.S. " Bramble " at Port Albany and to have a party sent out at once to Weymouth Bay by sea.

Mr. Archibald Meston in his Re-port on the Aboriginals of Queensland,[2] states that in 1896 he mustered the blacks of the district surrounding Moreton Telegraph Station, and adds: "One old fellow remembered Kennedy's expedition of 1848 and all the fatal circumstances of the last sad days. He said Kennedy had been shooting blacks all along his track."

If that old black really saw the Kennedy expedition forty-eight years before he told the story, there can be no doubt that he exaggerated grossly. Carron records only two instances (16th September and loth October, 1848) when Kennedy's party used firearms in self-defence. If there was any foundation for the

  1. Names given by the officers of the surveying ships " Paluma " and "Dart," 1890-8. See the chapters on Minutiae of Marine Surveys.
  2. Report on the Aboriginals of Queensland, by Archibald Meston, Special Commission under Instructions from the Queensland Government, Brisbane. By Authority, 1896.