BY CHAS H. EDEN.
HOW WE EXPLORED THE MACALISTER RIVER.
The reader who has been good enough to follow me so far, will see that
hitherto our efforts had been unattended with the slightest success, and
that the fate of the missing schooner and her living freight still
remained buried in the deepest mystery. To say that we were not
disheartened by our numerous disappointments would be untrue, for we
well knew that each closing day rendered our chances of affording relief
to the survivors more and more difficult; so much so, in fact, that at
the council assembled to discuss the matter in the large dining-room of the
hotel, several voices urged the expediency of abandoning any further
attempts. Much valuable time, they remarked, had been already expended by
men to whom time represented money, nay more - the means of living. Their
own avocations imperiously demanded their presence, and although they were
the last men in the world to desert their fellow-beings in extremity,
still, in a country where every man lived by the sweat of his own brow,
self-interest could not be entirely sacrificed.
[ILLUSTRATION - AUSTRALIANS IN CAMP.]
Even we, who were most anxious to organise another expedition, could not
but acknowledge that the searchers had much justice on their side; but when
we were discussing matters in rather a despondent tone, a new ally came to
the front in the person of Jack Clarke, the horse-breaker.
"Where do you propose going next?" he asked Dunmore.
"We must search the ranges at the back of the township first, and another
party must go up the Macalister River," was the reply.
"Need both parties start at the same time?"
"The chances of success would, of course, be greater if they did," replied
the officer, "but still it is not absolutely necessary."
"Well," said Jack, "suppose you take the pilot boat, and go up the river,
which will take much longer to explore than the ranges; and, at the end of
a week, we shall have got our own affairs pretty straight, and will beat
all the country at the back, and join you on the Macalister. What do you
think of that, mates?" he added, turning to the company. "Won't that suit
us all?"
"Capitally!" was echoed from every side, and after sundry drinks the party
broke up; Dunmore and I hastening to make immediate preparations for our
new trip.
The Macalister River was at this time most imperfectly known; for, lying to
the extreme north of Rockingham Bay, its fertile banks had hitherto
attracted little or no attention; the great sugar industry being then
comparatively in its infancy in Queensland. A dangerous bar at its mouth,
over which heavy rollers were always breaking, made pleasure-seekers rather
shy of attempting its entry, more particularly as the muddy mangrove flats
held out small hope of aught save mosquitoes and blacks.
