nth, it was so cold that we were glad to have fires close to our tents.
Mr. Poole had gradually become worse and worse, and was now wholly
confined to his bed, unable to stir, a melancholy affliction both to
himself and us, rendering our detention in that gloomy region still more
painful. My men generally were in good health, but almost all had
bleeding at the nose; I was only too thankful that my own health did not
give way, though I still felt the scurvy in a mitigated form, but Mr.
Browne had more serious symptoms about him.

The 10th of May completed the ninth month of our absence from Adelaide,
and still we were locked up without the hope of escape, whilst every day
added fresh causes of anxiety to those I had already to bear up against.
Mr. Poole became worse, all his skin along the muscles turned black, and
large pieces of spongy flesh hung from the roof of his mouth, which was
in such a state that he could hardly eat. Instead of looking with
eagerness to the moment of our liberation, I now dreaded the consequent
necessity of moving him about in so dreadful a condition. Mr. Browne
attended him with a constancy and kindness that could not but raise him
in my estimation, doing every thing which friendship or sympathy could
suggest.

On the 11th about 3 p.m. I was roused by the dogs simultaneously
springing up and rushing across the creek, but supposing they had seen a
native dog, I did not rise; however, I soon knew by their continued
barking that they had something at bay, and Mr. Piesse not long after
came to inform me a solitary native was on the top of some rising ground
in front of the camp. I sent him therefore with some of the men to call
off the dogs, and to bring him down to the tents. The poor fellow had
fought manfully with the dogs, and escaped injury, but had broken his
waddy over one of them. He was an emaciated and elderly man, rather low
in stature, and half dead with hunger and thirst; he drank copiously of
the water that was offered to him, and then ate as much as would have
served me for four and twenty dinners. The men made him up a screen of
boughs close to the cart near the servants, and I gave him a blanket in
which he rolled himself up and soon fell fast asleep. Whence this
solitary stranger could have come from we could not divine. No other
natives approached to look after him, nor did he shew anxiety for any
absent companion. His composure and apparent self-possession were very
remarkable