ectedly long. Thinking there was no
necessity for all to endure these hardships, he left eight of his
companions at Weymouth Bay, intending to call for them on his way back
in the schooner. He was courageously pushing through the jungle towards
the north with three men and his black servant Jackey, when one of the
party accidentally received a severe gunshot wound, which made it
impossible for him to proceed. Kennedy was now only a few miles distant
from Cape York; and, leaving the wounded man under the care of the two
remaining whites, he started--accompanied by Jackey--to reach the cape
and obtain assistance from the schooner. They had not gone far, and were
on the banks of the Escape River, when they perceived that their steps
were being closely followed by a tribe of natives, whose swarthy bodies,
from time to time, appeared among the trees. Kennedy now proceeded
warily, keeping watch all around; but a spear, urged by an unseen hand
from among the leaves, suddenly pierced his body from behind, and he
fell. The blacks rushed forward, but Jackey fired, and at the report
they hastily fled. Jackey held up his master's head for a short time,
weeping bitterly. Kennedy knew he was dying, and he gave his faithful
servant instructions as to the papers he was to carry, and the course he
must follow. Not long after this he breathed his last, and Jackey, with
his tomahawk, dug a shallow grave for him in the forest. He spread his
coat and shirt in the hollow, laid the body tenderly upon them, and
covered it with leaves and branches. Then, packing up the journals, he
plunged into the creek, along which he walked, with only his head above
the surface, until he neared the shore. Hastily making for the north,
he reached the cape, where he was taken on board the schooner. This
expedition was one of the most disastrous of the inland explorations.
The wounded man, and the two who had been left with him, were never
afterwards heard of--in all probability they were slaughtered by the
natives; whilst the party of eight, who had been left at Weymouth Bay,
after constant struggles with the natives, had been reduced, by
starvation and disease, to only two ere the expected relief arrived.

#11. Gregory.#--In 1856 A. C. Gregory went in search of Leichardt, and,
thinking he might possibly have reached the north-west coast, took a
small party to Cambridge Gulf. Travelling along the banks of the
Victoria River, he crossed a low range of hills an