I might decide upon adopting; but I perceived,
with pain, that I could not convince him that the view I took was the
proper one, and that the plan I intended to follow was the only one which
held out to us even the remotest hopes of eventual safety and success.
Finding that I made little progress in removing his doubts on the
question of our advance, I resolved to pursue the subject no further,
until the time for decision came, hoping that in the interim, his
opinions and feelings might in some degree be modified, and that he might
then accompany me cheerfully. The important and pressing duty of
recovering at once the stores we had left behind, now claimed my
attention. The overseer, with his usual anxiety to save me from any extra
labour, kindly offered to attempt this object again; but as he had just
returned from a severe, though unfortunately unsuccessful journey for the
same purpose, I decided upon doing it myself, and at once made my
preparations for leaving the camp.
Chapter XVIII.
GO BACK WITH A NATIVE - SPEAR STING-RAYS - RECOVER THE BAGGAGE - COLD
WEATHER - OVERSEER RECONNOITRES THE CLIFFS - UNFAVOURABLE
REPORT - DIFFERENCE OF OPINION AS TO BEST PLANS FOR THE FUTURE - KILL A
HORSE FOR FOOD - INJURIOUS EFFECTS FROM MEAT DIET - NATIVE BOYS BECOME
DISAFFECTED - THEY STEAL PROVISIONS - NATIVE BOYS DESERT THE PARTY - THEY
RETURN ALMOST STARVED - PARTY PROCEED ONWARDS TO THE WESTWARD - CLIFFS OF
THE BIGHT - COUNTRY BEHIND THEM - THREATENING WEATHER - MURDER OF THE
OVERSEER.
April 10. - FOUR days' provisions having been given to each of the party,
I took the King George's Sound native with me to retrace, on foot, our
route to the eastward. For the first ten miles I was accompanied by one
of the other native boys, leading a horse to carry a little water for us,
and take back the stores the overseer had buried at that point, when the
second horse knocked up with him on the morning of the 9th. Having found
the things, and put them on the horse, I sent the boy with them back to
the camp, together with a large sting-ray fish which he had speared in
the surf near the shore. It was a large, coarse, ugly-looking thing, but
as it seemed to be of the same family as the skate, I did not imagine we
should run any risk in eating it. In other respects, circumstances had
broken through many scruples and prejudices, and we were by no means
particular as to what the fish might be, if it were eatable.
Having buried our little keg of water until our return, the King George's
Sound native and myself pushed on for five miles further, and then halted
for the night, after a day's journey of fifteen miles. We now cooked some
sting-ray fish (for the native with me had speared a second one,) and
though it was coarse and dry, our appetites had been sharpened by our
walk, and we thought it far from being unpalatable.
