stle was sounded, to the great amusement of the men, who threw up
pieces of meat for them to catch before they fell to the ground. When the
old man first came to us, we fed him on mutton, but one of the men
happening to shoot a crow, he shewed such a decided preference for it,
that he afterwards lived almost exclusively upon them. He was, as I have
stated, when he first came to us a thin and emaciated being, but at the
expiration of a fortnight when he rose to depart, he threw off his
blanket and exhibited a condition that astonished us all. He was
absolutely fat, and yet his face did not at all indicate such a change.
If he had been fed in the dark like capons, he could not have got into
better condition. Mr. Browne was anxious to accompany him, but I thought
that if his suspicions were aroused he would not return, and I therefore
let him depart as he came. With him all our hopes vanished, for even the
presence of that savage was soothing to us, and so long as he remained,
we indulged in anticipations as to the future. From the time of his
departure a gloomy silence pervaded the camp; we were, indeed, placed
under the most trying circumstances; every thing combined to depress our
spirits and exhaust our patience. We had gradually been deserted by every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air. We had witnessed migration
after migration of the feathered tribes, to that point to which we were
so anxious to push our way. Flights of cockatoos, of parrots, of pigeons,
and of bitterns, birds also whose notes had cheered us in the wilderness,
all had taken the same high road to a better and more hospitable region.
The vegetable kingdom was at a stand, and there was nothing either to
engage the attention or attract the eye. Our animals had laid the ground
bare for miles around the camp, and never came towards it but to drink.
The axe had made a broad gap in the line of gum-trees which ornamented
the creek, and had destroyed its appearance. We had to witness the
gradual and fearful diminution of the water, on the possession of which
our lives depended; day after day we saw it sink lower and lower,
dissipated alike by the sun and the winds. From its original depth of
nine feet, it now scarcely measured two, and instead of extending from
bank to bank it occupied only a narrow line in the centre of the channel.
Had the drought continued for a month longer than it pleased the Almighty
to terminate it, that creek would have been a