y without rations on the road between
Liardet's beach and the town. But there was no work for them here;
and, as their provisions soon ran short, they had to go away or
starve. I stopped here, and have been starving most of the time.
Some went back in the cutters and some overland.

"Brodribb and Hobson came here over the mountains with four Port
Phillip blacks, and they decided to look for a better way by the
coast. I landed them and their four blacks at the head of Corner
Inlet. They were attacked by the Western Port blacks near the River
Tarwin, but they frightened them away by firing their guns. The four
Port Phillip blacks who were carrying the ammunition and provisions
ran away too; and the two white men had nothing to eat for two or
three days until they made Massey and Anderson's station on the Bass,
where they found their runaway blacks.

"William Pearson and his party were the next who left the Port. They
took the road over the mountains, and lived on monkey bears until
they reached Massey and Anderson's.

"McClure, Scott, Montgomery, and several other men started next.
They had very little of their provisions left when I landed them one
morning at One Tree Hill there over the water. They were fourteen
days tramping over the mountains, and were so starved that they ate
their own dogs. They came back in a schooner, but I think some of
them will never get over that journey. I tell you, Jack, it's hard
to make a start in a new country with no money, no food, and no live
stock, except Scott's old horse and that lame deerhound. Poor Ossian
was a good dog, and used to run down an old man kangaroo for us,
until one of them gave him a terrible rip with his claw, and he has
been lame ever since. For eight weeks we were living on roast
flat-head, and I grew tired of it, so on the 17th of last month I
started down the inlet in my whaleboat, and went to Lady Bay to take
in some firewood. I knew the mutton-birds would be coming to the
islands on the 23rd or 24th, but I landed on one of them on the 19th,
four or five days too soon, and began to look for something to eat. There
were some pig-faces, but they were only in flower, no fruit on 'em.
I could find nothing but penguin's eggs and I put some of those in a
pot over the fire. But they would never get hard if I boiled them
all day. There is something oily inside of them, and how it gets
there I never could tell. You might as well try to live on rancid