left the best impression behind us, and that the "white
fellows," as they have already learned to call us, will be looked
on henceforth as friends, and that, in case of emergency, any one
will receive the kindest treatment at their hands.

. . .

The South Australian Register, of the 26th of November, 1861,
published at Adelaide, contained the following statement, which
excited universal attention:--

The Government have just received from Mr. McKinlay, leader of
the expedition sent from this colony in search of Burke, a diary of
his proceedings up to the 26th of October last. This document
contains a most singular narrative, being nothing less than an
account of McKinlay's discovery of what he believes to be the
remains of Burke's party, who he considers were some time since not
only murdered, but partly eaten by the natives in the neighbourhood
of Cooper's Creek. He, of course, had heard nothing of the result
of Mr. Howitt's expedition, or of Mr. King having been found alive
by that expedition. When, therefore, he came to a spot where there
were graves containing the bones of white men, and where there were
indications of a conflict having taken place with the natives, some
of whom spoke of those white men having been killed and partly
eaten, he came to the conclusion that he had ascertained all that
was possible of Mr. Burke and his companions. He accordingly buried
a letter, containing a statement to this effect, at a place near
where the remains were found, and then after forwarding to Adelaide
the despatch which has now reached us, proceeded westward upon some
other business intrusted to him by the Government.

It seems fated that every chapter of the unfortunate Burke
exploration shall be marked with unusual interest. The failures at
the beginning of the enterprise, the tragedy of the explorers'
deaths, and the remarkable rescue of the survivor King, are now
followed by a subject of interest altogether new and mysterious.
Certain as it is that McKinlay cannot have discovered the remains
of Burke's party, as he so firmly believed he had, it is equally
clear that some other white men must have met their deaths at the
spot reached by him, and that those deaths were, to all appearance,
the result of foul play. That the remains found by McKinlay cannot
have been those of Burke and Wills, disinterred, removed, and
mangled after death, may be inferred from a number of circumstances
detailed by him in the extracts