ting
to the sea-shore. Flour and tea were the only articles remaining of
their store of provisions, and neither of these were in sufficient
quantities to last them to the place where they expected to find fresh
supplies inland. But the first view of Encounter Bay convinced them that
no vessel could ever venture into it at a season when the S. W. winds
prevailed, and to the deep bight which it formed upon the coast (at the
bottom of which they then were), it was hopeless to expect any vessel to
approach so nearly as to be seen by them. To remain there was out of the
question; to cross the ranges towards the Gulph of St. Vincent, when the
men had no strength to walk, and the natives were numerous and not
peaceably disposed, was equally impossible. The passage from the lake
to the ocean was not without interruption, from the shallowness of the
sandy channel, otherwise Captain Sturt, in his little boat, would have
coasted round to Port Jackson, or steered for Launceston, in Van
Dieman's Land; and this he declares he would rather have done, could he
have foreseen future difficulties, than follow the course which he did.
Having walked across to the entrance of the channel, and found it quite
impracticable and useless, he resolved to return along the same route by
which he had come, only with these important additional difficulties to
encounter,--diminished strength, exhausted stores, and an adverse
current. The provisions were found sufficient only for the same number
of days upon their return as they had occupied in descending the river,
and speed was no less desirable in order to avoid encounters with the
natives than for the purpose of escaping the miseries of want; into
which, however, it was felt, a single untoward accident might in an
instant plunge them. With feelings of this description the party left
Lake Alexandrina and re-entered the channel of the Murray.

[26] The dimensions given in Captain Sturt's map. The South-Australian
Almanac states it to be sixty miles long, and varying in width from ten
to forty miles.

It will be needless to follow the explorers through all the particulars
of their journey upwards to the depot on the Morrumbidgee. The boat
struck, the natives were troublesome, the rapids difficult to get over;
but the worst of all their toils and trials were their daily labours and
unsatisfied wants. One circumstance ought, in justice to the character
of the men, to be noticed. They positively re