d rain and cause the grass to become green, so as to
stop them burning, as well as to give me some fresh food for the horses,
for they now begin to show the want of it very much; it is so dried up
that there is little nourishment in it. Some of them are beginning to
look very poor and are much troubled with worms. My journeys have been
very short last week, in consequence of my being so weak from the effects
of scurvy and a severe attack of dysentery, for I have scarcely been able
to endure the motion of horseback for four hours at a time; but having
lately obtained some native cucumbers, I find they are doing me a deal of
good, and hope by next week to be all right again. Wind, south. Latitude,
14 degrees 51 minutes 51 seconds.

Friday, 27th June, West Roper River. Started on a course of 320 degrees,
crossing the river, and at three miles and a half again struck the Roper,
running. Followed it up, coming nearly from the west, but winding about
very much, and having many branches, which makes it very difficult for me
to get the turns correctly. It is a splendid river. We have passed many
brooks and deep reaches of water some miles in length, and the country
could not be better: it is really magnificent. At 2.30 I was informed
that we were short of a horse. Sent Messrs. Kekwick and Thring back to
see where he was left. We have had to cross so many boggy, nasty places,
with deep water and thick scrub, that he must have been missed at one of
these. The general course of the river to-day has been 280 degrees.
Distance, fifteen miles. Messrs. Kekwick and Thring are returned. They
found the horse bogged in a side creek. It was so thick with cabbage-tree
that they passed in searching for him two or three times. They had great
difficulty in getting him out, but at last succeeded, and arrived at the
camp before dark. A short time before that, another horse got into a very
deep and rapid channel of the river, the top of the banks projecting so
much that he could not get out, and the gum-trees having fallen across
both above and below him, he was completely fixed. We endeavoured to get
him out, but it got so dark that we could not see him, and the rope
breaking that we were pulling him out by, he got his head under water,
and was drowned in a moment. We then found that the cause of the rope
breaking was that he had got one of his hind feet entangled in a sunken
tree. It being now so dark we can do no more to-night, and have left him