sh at last of starvation, seemed a fate too
terrible; and we cannot wonder that the little band fought their destiny
to the last. Little scraps of the journal of Burke and his friends tell
the sad tale of the last few weeks of agony. On March 6th, Burke seemed
near dying from having eaten a bit of a large serpent that he had
cooked. On the 30th they killed one of their camels, and on April 10th
they killed "Billy," Burke's favorite riding-horse. On the 11th they
were forced to halt on account of the condition of Grey, who was no
longer able to proceed. On the 21st they reached an oasis--a little
squad of human skeletons, scarcely more than alive.

[Illustration: COURSE OF THE TAMAR, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.]

Far and wide their longing eyes gazed in search of succor: they called
aloud with all their little remaining strength, but the oasis was
deserted, and the echo of their own sad voices was all the reply that
reached the despairing men. Then, at their rendezvous, finding the word
"Dig" on the tree where Howitt found it at a later day, they opened the
soil, and so learned the departure of Brahe on that very morning. How
terribly tantalizing, after their exhausting march and still more
exhausting return, after having killed and eaten all their camels but
two, and all their horses, after making discoveries that unlocked to the
world the vast interior of this hitherto unknown continent, to find that
they were just too late to be saved! Despair and death seemed staring
them in the face: their long overtaxed powers of endurance failed them
utterly, and the gaunt spectre of famine that had been journeying with
the brave men for weeks threatened now to enfold them in its terrible
embrace. Should they yield without another struggle? Burke suddenly
remembered Mount Despair, a cattle-station about one hundred and fifty
leagues away, and with his indomitable resolution persuaded his
companions to start for it, depositing first in the little iron casket
the journal of his discoveries and the date of his departure. As if to
add the last finishing stroke of agony to the sad story, Burke and his
companions had hardly turned their faces westward ere Brahe and Wright,
who had met at the passage of the Loddon, and were now overwhelmed with
remorse at their careless neglect of their leader's orders, determined
to revisit Cooper's Creek, and see if any tidings were to be gained of
the missing party.

[Illustration: GORGE OF THE TAMAR, VAN